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BOOK     1  1  1.Z7    c.  1 

ZNANIECKI    #    CULTURAL    REALITY 


3  T1S3  DOObOlOS  3 


L 


CULTURAL  REALITY 


THE  UNIVERSITY  OF  CHICAGO  PRESS 
CHICAGO.  ILLINOIS 


THE  BAKER  &  TAYLOR  COMPANY 

NBW  TOBK 

THE  CAMBRIDGE  UNIVERSITY  PRESS 

LONDOK  AND  EDINBURGH 

THE  MARUZEN-KABUSHIKI-KAISHA 

TOKYO,  OSAKA,  KYOTO,  FUKUOKA,  SENDAI 

THE  MISSION  BOOK  COMPANY 

SHANGHAI 


TVl 


>3awft»>'-'  ■  - 


CULTURAL  REALITY 

1 

By 

FLORIAN  ZNANIECKI,  PH.D. 

Lecturer  in  Polish  History  and  Institutions 
in  the  Uni-versity  of  Chicago 


THE  UNIVERSITY  OF  CHICAGO  PRESS 
CHICAGO,  ILLINOIS 


2^ 


Copyright  191 9  By 
The  University  of  Chicago 


All  Rights  Reserved 


Published  February  1919 


Composed  and  Printed  By 

The  University  of  Chicajfo  Press 

Chicajo.  Illinois.  U.S.A. 


PREFACE 

The  present  study  of  cultural  reality  constitutes  the  first 
part  of  a  general  introduction  to  the  philosophy  of  culture, 
to  be  supplemented  soon  by  a  second  part  bearing  upon  the 
fundamental  principles  of  creative  activity.  As  will  be  clear 
from  the  first  chapter  of  the  present  volume,  in  calling  the 
body  of  knowledge  for  which  this  introduction  intends  to  lay 
the  formal  foundations  a  "philosophy  of  culture,"  I  do  not 
mean  to  say  that  it  is  a  mere  branch  of  philosophy  in  general, 
but  to  indicate  by  this  term  a  standpoint  and  a  method 
applicable  to  the  entire  field  of  research  which  has  belonged 
or  can  belong  to  philosophy.  This  field  is  incomparably 
wider  than,  not  only  scientists,  but  even  professional  philos- 
ophers are  now  inclined  to  admit.  There  can  be  hardly  a 
more  paradoxical  situation  found  in  the  history  of  knowledge 
than  that  of  modem  professional  philosophy,  which  is  slowly 
waning  for  lack  of  material,  whereas  at  no  other  period  was 
there  such  a  wealth  and  variety  of  ready  materials  at  hand. 

We  find  the  question  quite  seriously  discussed  whether 
philosophy  has  or  not  a  subject-matter  of  its  own,  while 
innumerable  concrete  problems,  as  vital,  as  positive,  as 
important,  as  those  which  any  theoretic  discipline  ever  had 
to  deal  with,  are  waiting  to  be  adequately  formulated  and 
solved  by  a  well-organized  and  self-conscious  philosophy. 
We  see  philosophers  trying  to  put  an  artificial  life  into  old 
systems,  or  attempting  to  synthetize  the  ready  results  of 
special  sciences,  or  reducing  their  discipline  to  a  mere  investi- 
gation of  the  methodological  and  ontological  presuppositions 
of  these  sciences,  or  even  resigning  all  unity  of  philosophical 
purposes  and  methods  and  dissolving  philosophy  into  a 
multiplicity  of  partly  philosophical,  partly  scientific  or  practi- 
cal, monographs. 


VI  PREFACE 

Things  have  gone  so  far  that  philosophers  are  almost 
ashamed  of  their  profession  and  seriously  try  to  justify 
the  fact  that  they  are  still  doing  some  philosophical  work 
by  limiting  this  work  to  what  in  their  opinion  may  be 
directly  useful  to  the  scientist  or  practitioner.  They  do  not 
seem  to  realize  that  in  the  division  of  scientific  labor  each 
branch  of  knowledge  can  be  useful  to  others  only  if  it  has  an 
independent  significance  of  its  own;  if,  instead  of  merely 
reflecting  about  the  problems  of  other  sciences,  it  can  by  its 
own  power  draw  from  our  empirical  world — the  object-matter 
of  all  theory — problems  which  no  other  discipline  can  state 
and  solve.  But  philosophy  is  officially  denied  such  a  power; 
it  is  supposed  to  have  no  vitality  of  its  own.  Interesting 
illustrations  of  this  view  can  be  found  in  the  attitude  of 
philosophical  faculties.  Thus,  the  Faculty  of  Paris  decided 
about  ten  years  ago  that  students  of  philosophy  who  intended 
to  do  systematic  (not  only  historical)  philosophical  work 
should  be  advised  to  take  a  degree  in  mathematical  and 
physical  sciences.  A  similar  attitude  prevailed  in  Vienna 
under  the  influence  of  ^Mach,  in  Cracow  where  a  prominent 
biologist  was  appointed  associate  professor  of  philosophy,  and 
at  many  German  universities,  particularly  in  Leipzig.  The 
same  lack  of  confidence  in  philosophy  shows  itself  in  the 
emphasis  that  in  America  is  put  upon  psychology  as  a  disci- 
pline which,  having  more  positive  problems  than  it  can  em- 
brace at  its  present  stage,  may  give  the  poor  philosopher  who 
lacks  material  something  to  work  upon. 

While  such  conditions  prevail  in  professional  philosophy, 
simultaneously,  an  incalculable  amount  of  philosophical  work 
is  being  done  by  men  who  profess  to  be  scientific  specialists 
and  classify  their  philosophical  theories  as  belonging  to  the 
domains  of  their  respective  special  disciplines.  The  literature 
of  sociology,  psychology,  political  and  economical  sciences, 
history,  philology,  aesthetic  criticism,  contains  not  only 
fragments   of   works,   but   whole   voluminous   works   whose 


PREFACE  vii 

proper  place  is  not  at  all  indicated  by  their  classification; 
for  whatever  may  be  the  field  from  which  they  take  their  raw 
materials,  their  methods  of  research,  the  content  of  their 
concepts,  the  t>^es  of  their  systematization  are  certainly  not 
scientific,  but  comply  with  philosophical  standards,  though 
often  rather  imperfectly. 

The  chief  reason  why  such  theories  are  not  definitively 
excluded  from  the  domains  of  the  respective  sciences  is  the 
insufficient  methodical  development  of  the  latter ;  the  sciences 
of  culture  have  not  yet  elaborated  and  applied  their  criteria 
of  scientific  validity  as  perfectly  and  consistently  as  the 
sciences  of  nature  have  done  in  their  own  field.  In  fact,  in 
the  measure  in  which  the  consciousness  of  scientific  aims  and 
methods  progresses  in  the  domain  of  cultural  knowledge,  we 
see  a  growing  tendency  to  get  rid  of  all  influences  popularly 
called  "metaphysical,"  just  as  natural  science  did  long  ago. 
This  tendency  has  been  for  more  than  one  generation  manifest 
in  psychology  and  has  since  the  beginning  of  the  present  century 
shown  itself  very  clearly  in  sociology  and  economical  science. 

But  the  interesting  point  is  that  the  non-scientific  types 
of  problematization,  justly  excluded  from  these  sciences,  do 
not  lose  their  vitality  as  did  most  of  the  old  "philosophy  of 
nature"  when  supplanted  by  positive  scientific  investigations. 
They  return  continually,  impose  themselves  upon  the  atten- 
tion of  both  the  theorist  and  the  practical  man.  We  see,  for 
instance,  innumerable  particular  and  general  problems  formu- 
lated in  terms  of  values — moral,  aesthetic,  religious,  political, 
intellectual,  hedonistic — surviving  all  scientific  analysis  of 
valuations,  reappearing  sometimes  most  unexpectedly  in 
the  midst  of  purely  scientific  researches,  disturbing  their 
methodical  perfection,  and  impairing  the  positive  validity  of 
their  results.  We  find  the  tendency  to  put  concrete  problems 
from  the  standpoint  of  liberty  and  creativeness  persisting  in 
spite  of  the  extension  of  the  principle  of  causality  to  all  fields 
of  activity,  and  frequently  influencing  even  men  who  want  to 


viii  PREFACE 

remain  pure  scientists.  And  so  on.  The  very  progress  of 
scientific  method  in  the  domain  of  culture  Hmits  the  possi- 
bilities of  its  application;  by  showing  how  to  put  scientific 
problems,  it  shows  that  there  are  problems  in  this  domain 
which,  however  vital,  cannot  be  scientific,  and  thus  forces  us 
to  recognize  the  existence  and  the  importance  of  a  completely 
different  problematization. 

It  is  certainly  time  to  proceed  to  a  more  critical  and 
systematic  elaboration  and  application  of  this  non-scientific 
methodological  standpoint  which  we  continually  take,  inten- 
tionally or  unintentionally,  with  regard  to  the  cultural 
phenomena.  This  will  help  cultural  sciences  in  their  efforts 
to  reach  a  perfect  scientific  method  free  from  disturbing 
factors,  and  will  permit  us  to  supplement  their  investigations 
by  a  completely  different  but  equally  necessary  philosophical 
type  of  studies.  For  the  standpoint  which  cultural  sciences 
have  to  exclude  is  precisely  that  which  has  most  commonly 
been  accepted  by  philosophy  as  its  own.  Logic,  ethics, 
aesthetics,  often  even  metaphysics,  have  been  essentially 
concerned  with  problems  of  values,  and  the  acceptance  of 
freedom  or  creation  in  some  form  or  other,  as  against  the 
exclusively  causal  scientific  viewpoint,  has  been  a  character- 
istic feature  of  most  of  the  great  philosophical  systems. 
Modern  philosophy  is  conscious  that  these  are  the  two  points 
to  which  its  existence  is  attached,  that  in  the  domain  of  values 
and  in  that  of  creative  freedom  there  is  something  left  for 
it  to  do  independently  and  outside  of  science.  The  two 
relatively  most  vital  philosophical  schools  are  precisely  those 
which  took  these  two  points  respectively  for  their  fundamental 
object-matter — the  philosophy  of  values  in  Germany,  with 
Windelband,  Rickert,  Miinsterberg,  in  some  measure  perhaps 
also  Meinong,  Husserl,  and  the  American  new  realists,  though 
their  terminologies  are  different;  and  the  philosophy  of 
creation  in  France,  with  Renouvier,  Guyau,  Bergson,  and  his 
followers.     And  pragmatism,  which  is  rather  a  current  of 


PREFACE  ix 

thought  than  a  school,  is  continually,  even  if  unsystematically, 
working  on  both  of  these  problems. 

The  great  mistake  which  modern  philosophy  committed 
in  this  line  was  to  treat  the  problems  of  values  and  of  cre- 
ative freedom  in  their  general  formulation  as  ultimate  and 
self-sufficient,  instead  of  taking  them  only  as  starting-points 
of  future  investigations,  as  mere  problems  of  philosophical 
methodology.  All  a  philosopher  usually  attempted  to  do 
was  to  show  that  there  are  values  or  that  there  is  creative 
freedom  in  spite  of  science  which  ignores  or  rejects  both. 
Sometimes  he  tried  to  classify  and  define  the  fundamental 
types  of  values  or  to  indicate  where  and  how  creative  freedom 
manifests  itself  in  the  world;  with  this,  he  thought  his  task 
accomplished,  the  philosophical  problem  of  values,  the 
philosophical  problem  of  creation,  all  solved.  Accustomed 
to  the  fact  that  philosophy  in  the  technical  sense  of  the  term 
has  progressively  hmited  itself  to  the  most  abstract,  formal 
problems,  he  could  hardly  realize  that  there  was  in  the 
subject-matter  of  his  study  a  new  opening  by  which  his 
discipline  might  pass  from  the  narrow  inclosure  of  formal 
discussions  into  the  wide,  inexhaustible  field  of  concrete 
empirical  materials. 

The  importance  of  the  problems  of  values  and  of  creative 
freedom  does  not  lie  merely  in  the  fact  that  they  permit  us  to 
believe  in  something  more  than  scientific  data  and  laws. 
Their  significance  for  philosophy  is  exactly  parallel  to  that 
which  the  problem  of  causahty  has  for  science.  They  are 
simply  problems  of  philosophical  method.  In  putting  and 
solving  them  philosophy  might  have  reached  something 
incomparably  more  important  than  a  few  more  or  less  new 
metaphysical  conceptions :  it  could  have  critically  established 
a  methodological  foundation  for  future  investigations,  thanks 
to  which  it  might  have  begun  to  develop  an  independent, 
empirical,  philosophical  knowledge,  bearing  on  the  same  raw 
materials  as  science,  but  obtaining  from  them,  by  a  radically 


X  PREFACE 

different  and  original  treatment,  an  indefinitely  growing  and 
systematically  organized  body  of  theoretically  and  practically 
vital  truths,  which  science  by  the  necessary  limitation  of  its 
standpoint  can  never  reach.  This  possibility  was  occasionally 
foreseen  by  some  philosophers.  Thus,  Bergson  has  thought  of 
a  philosophical  and  yet  empirical  knowledge  supplementing 
science,  but  his  mystical  doctrine  of  intuition  and  his  narrow 
conception  of  logic  preclude  any  possibility  of  future  develop- 
ment. The  pragmatists,  particularly  Dewey,  had  at  one  time 
a  much  clearer  conception  of  what  might  be  done  in  this  line ; 
but  their  lack  of  faith  in  philosophy  in  the  technical  sense  of 
the  term  and  their  mistrust  of  systematization  have  prevented 
them  up  to  now  from  developing  organically  and  consistently 
this  empirical  philosophy  which  their  principles  seem  to 
require,  and  makes  them  often  leave  to  non-philosophical 
disciplines  empirical  problems  which  can  be  attacked  only  by 
a  thoroughly  and  critically  elaborated,  completely  original, 
philosophical  method. 

The  work  of  which  the  present  book  constitutes  the  first 
part  was  originally,  years  ago,  meant  to  be  nothing  but  a 
methodological  introduction  to  a  philosophy  of  cultural 
activities  to  which  I  was  led  by  a  study  of  some  general 
historical  and  sociological  problems.  But  new  difficulties 
arose  at  every  step  of  this  methodological  investigation,  and 
with  every  difficulty  the  field  widened.  The  main  point  was 
how  to  reconcile  the  conceptions  of  reality  as  a  world  of  prac- 
tical values  and  of  thought  as  empirically  creative  and  yet 
objectively  valid  human  activity,  which  an  adequate  philo- 
sophical treatment  of  cultural  problems  seemed  to  demand, 
with  the  naturalistic  view  of  reality  prevalent  in  science,  and 
the  ideahstic  view  of  thought  found  not  only  in  systems  of 
philosophical  idealism,  but  in  almost  all  classical  logic.  For 
at  first  I  did  not  even  dare  to  touch  these  most  funda- 
mental problems  in  their  general  significance  and  hoped 
to   construct  a  methodological  viewpoint  sufficient  for  the 


PREFACE  XI 

purpose  of  what  I  thought  then  a  special  branch  of  philo- 
sophical investigation,  without  going  too  far  into  ontological 
and  logical  discussions.  This  hope  proved  vain;  it  became 
more  and  more  evident  that  a  philosophy  of  culture,  if  it 
wanted  to  take  seriously  and  thoroughly  into  considera- 
tion the  empirical  problems  concerning  cultural  values  and 
activities,  had  to  revise  the  whole  traditional  philosophical 
problematization.  I  tried  to  clear  the  ground  for  my  meth- 
odology in  several  philosophical  monographs  pubHshed  in 
Polish  {The  Problem  of  Values  in  Philosophy,  Warsaw,  1910; 
Humanism  and  Knowledge,  Warsaw,  191 2;  The  Significance 
of  Evolution,  Warsaw,  1914)  and  a  series  of  articles  between 
1909  and  19 1 5  in  the  Philosophical  Review  of  Warsaw.  The 
results  of  these  studies  seemed  to  indicate,  first,  that  a 
philosophy  of  culture,  if  fully  and  adequately  treated,  must 
become  a  complete  empirical  theory  of  all  activity  in  its 
bearing  upon  reality,  and  must  thus  include  the  totality 
of  the  subject-matter  of  all  existing  philosophical  disci- 
plines and  much  more  besides;  secondly,  that  the  method- 
ology of  a  philosophy  thus  conceived  must  be  based  on  a 
systematic  and  complete  treatment  of  the  formal  characters 
which  all  empirical  reality  acquires  as  object-matter  of 
activity  and  of  those  which  all  empirical  activity  assumes 
when  taking  reality  as  its  object-matter — a  treatment  which, 
unlike  most  of  the  existing  philosophical  theories  of  reality 
and  active  thought,  would  not  pretend  to  give  a  self-sufficient 
and  complete  ontology  and  logic,  a  body  of  ultimate  truths 
about  the  world,  but  merely  to  prepare  the  formal  ground  for 
future  studies.  According  to  this  plan,  I  published  in  191 5  in 
the  America.n  Philosophical  Review  an  article,  "The  Principle 
of  Relativity  and  Philosophical  Absolutism,"  which  outlines 
the  field  of  philosophy  from  the  standpoint  of  the  universal 
relativity  of  all  values,  and  have  been  trying  since  to  recon- 
struct for  the  fifth  or  sixth  time  my  methodological  introduc- 
tion on  a  wider  ground  than  before. 


xii  PREFACE 

I  give  all  these  biographical  details  here  in  order  to  explain 
and  to  justify  the  imperfection  of  the  present  work,  of  which 
I  am  painfully  aware.  The  reader  has  the  right  to  expect  of 
a  study  that  attempts  to  construct  a  new  positive  formal 
foundation  of  our  whole  view  of  the  world  a  much  more 
exhaustive  treatment  of  problems,  a  more  perfect  systematic 
organization,  and  a  clearer  exposition  than  this  book  can  offer. 
But  it  would  require  many  more  years  to  raise  it  to  the  highest 
philosophical  standards,  while  I  am  more  eager  than  ever  to 
pass  from  introductory  investigation  to  the  main  work.  I 
hope  to  be  able  to  develop  during  the  latter  a  part  at  least  of 
the  points  which  have  been  only  suggested  in  this  introduction ; 
in  particular,  I  have  postponed  almost  all  historical  and  critical 
discussion  of  other  philosophical  theories,  past  and  present, 
in  order  to  treat  them  more  completely  and  adequately  when 
studying  in  detail  theoretic  activities  as  historically  mani- 
fested in  systems  of  science  and  philosophy.  Meanwhile, 
I  hope  that  the  kind  reader  will  hold  me  justified  in  publishing 
this  book  as  it  is  and  will  supplement  himself  such  deficiences 
as  he  may  find  in  it. 

There  is  also  an  objective  consideration  which  emboldens 
me  to  proceed  at  once  with  the  publication  of  the  present  work 
instead  of  endeavoring  to  make  it  more  perfect  from  the 
standpoint  of  traditional  philosophical  criteria.  Our  most 
pressing  intellectual  need  at  the  present  moment  is  an  adequate 
knowledge  of  the  cultural  world  as  a  basis  of  a  rational  tech- 
nique for  the  practical  control  of  the  immediate  future  of  our 
civilization.  The  Great  War  has,  apparently,  opened  a  new 
historical  epoch  which  promises  to  be  more  eventful  than  any 
period  of  the  past.  The  traditional  hnes  of  cultural  evolution 
are  changing  with  an  astonishing  rapidity;  new  currents  are 
appearing  whose  direction  we  are  unable  to  calculate  and 
whose  power  we  only  begin  to  suspect.  Do  these  changes 
imply  some  wonderful  future  progress  or  are  they  the  symp- 
toms of  an  incipient  disorganization  similar  to  that  of  the 


PREFACE  xiii 

Dark  Ages  ?  The  old  and  established  types  of  cultural 
investigation  give  us  no  methods  for  the  understanding  of  the 
present  in  its  bearing  upon  the  future.  Nor  do  they  help  us 
to  decide  what  we  should  do  in  order  to  influence  this  future 
in  accordance  with  our  aspirations,  in  order  to  incorporate 
our  highest  ideals  into  the  cultural  reality  which  is  evolving 
vmder  our  very  eyes.  It  seems  to  me,  therefore,  the  duty  of 
all  intellectual  workers  to  concentrate  their  eiiforts  for  years 
to  come  upon  problems  whose  solution  may  give  the  statesman 
and  the  moral  reformer,  the  practical  economist  and  the 
educator,  the  religious  idealist  and  the  artist,  instruments  with 
which  to  foster  cultural  progress.  In  the  light  of  this  emer- 
gency, it  is  evident  that  many  of  the  traditional  problems  and 
methods  of  philosophy,  while  preserving  their  importance  as 
historical  facts,  products  of  theoretic  activity,  should  be 
systematically  discussed  and  utilized  at  the  present  moment 
only  in  so  far  as  they  have  a  bearing  on  the  construction  of  a 
critical  methodical  foundation  of  cultural  studies.  If  there- 
fore I  have  not  given  in  this  work  as  much  attention  to  certain 
issues  as  their  deep  elaboration  in  modern  philosophy  seems 
to  demand,  it  is  because  I  feel  that  they  should  be  temporarily 
subordinated  to  a  more  vital  task. 

I  do  not  hope  therefore  to  contribute  much  to  the  solution 
of  the  already  defined  technical,  philosophical  problems.  My 
highest  hope  is  that  the  philosophy  of  which  this  book  is  the 
necessary  starting-point  will,  when  developed,  be  of  some 
significance  for  the  progress  of  culture.  If  it  is,  only  a  small 
part  of  the  merit  will  be  mine,  for  I  know  that  I  am  only 
continuing  to  develop  viewpoints  for  which  I  am  in  a  large 
measure  indebted  to  others.  Among  our  intellectual  obliga- 
tions the  greatest  are  usually  those  which  we  owe  to  the  ideals 
we  have  accepted  in  our  youth;  the  primary  source  of  the 
views  on  which  I  am  trying  to  build  a  philosophy  of  culture 
lies,  therefore,  in  Polish  historical  idealism.  Of  all  my  later 
debts  none  is  as  great  as  the  one  I  owe  to  pragmatism,  of 


xiv  PREFACE 

which,  m  fact,  I  am  incHned  to  consider  myself  almost  a 
disciple.  I  shall  not  be  surprised  if  the  masters  disown  me, 
since  I  cannot  share  most  of  the  established  pragmatic  views 
on  special  philosophical  problems,  such  as  the  biological  con- 
ception of  activity,  the  instrumental  definition  of  truth,  and 
several  others.  It  seems  to  me  that  the  general  current 
of  thought  which  pragmatism  has  started  is  too  powerful,  too 
wide,  and  too  deep  to  be  regulated  in  advance  by  the  few 
formulae  already  accepted  in  the  schools.  To  become  an 
orthodox  pragmatist  now  would  mean  to  sacrifice  the  spirit 
for  the  letter.  On  the  other  hand,  though  it  was  not  only 
useful  but  necessary  for  such  a  movement  to  start  by  a  sharp 
criticism  of  traditional,  dead  doctrines  and  to  avoid  in  the 
beginning  any  far-reaching  attempts  of  systematization,  the 
time  has  come  when  criticism  should  give  place  to  positive 
construction,  and  instead  of  scattered,  fragmentary,  often 
conflicting,  monographical  sketches,  a  self-consistent,  inter- 
nally unified,  organically  growing  body  of  new  knowledge 
should  be  created. 

While  speaking  of  my  obligations,  I  am  glad  of  this  oppor- 
tunity to  express  my  deepest  gratitude  to  Dr.  William  I. 
Thomas,  who,  from  the  very  first  day  of  my  arrival  in  this 
country,  has  given  me  invaluable  assistance  in  intellectual  and 
practical  matters.  I  am  greatly  indebted  to  him  for  the 
training  in  sociological  investigation  which  I  have  acquired  by 
collaborating  with  him,  and  for  the  help  which  I  have  con- 
tinually received  from  him  in  trying  to  master  the  EngHsh 
language,  in  particular  for  his  kindness  in  correcting  the  most 
important  of  the  many  stylistic  imperfections  of  the  present 
work.  I  must  also  thankfully  acknowledge  the  large  part 
which  my  wife  had  in  the  definitive  formulation  of  this  work 
by  discussing  critically  almost  every  important  point  and 
offering  numerous  positive  suggestions,  particularly  for 
chapters  ii  and  iii,  some  sections  of  which  without  her  help 
would  be  almost  unreadable.  y.  Z. 


TABLE  OF  CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  PAGE 

I.    CULTURALISM 

The  realistic  and  idealistic  views  of  the  world i 

The  thesis  of  culturalism 15 

II.  Experience  and  Reflection 

The  elementary  empirical  forms  of  experience 24 

Actuality  from  the  standpoint  of  the  empirical  analysis  of 

experience 34 

Actuality  from  the  standpoint  of  the  act  of  reflection     ...  40 

Synthesis  of  the  two  definitions  of  actuality 48 

Actuality  and  personality 50 

III.  The  Concrete,  Empirical  Object  and  Historical  Reality 

The  method 53 

The  content 56 

The  connection 63 

The  concrete  historical  object 79 

The  extension  of  historical  objects 104 

The  duration  of  historical  objects 114 

Existence  and  reality         133 

IV.  The  Practical  Organization  of  Reality 

The  method 145 

The  system  of  objects  in  the  course  of  its  actual  construction  154 

The  situation 169 

The  scheme 189 

The  practical  dogma  and  the  system  of  schemes    .      .      .      .  212 

V.  The  Theoretic  Orders  of  Reality 

The  general  features  of  theoretic  rationalization     ....  230 

The  physical  order 245 

The  psychological  order 261 

The  sociological  order 283 

The  ideal  order  of  reality 297 

The  problem  of  the  unity  of  knowledge 314 

The  instrumental  role  of  science 325 

VI.  The  Problem  of  Appreciation 339 

Index 355 

XV 


CHAPTER  I 
CULTURALISM 

THE   REALISTIC  AND  IDEALISTIC  VIEWS   OF   THE   WORLD 

The  predominant  feature  of  intellectual  evolution  during 
the  last  hundred  and  fifty  years  has  been  the  growing  separa- 
tion and  struggle  between  realism,  representing  the  relatively 
new  and  common  ground  of  all  sciences  of  nature,  and  ideahsm, 
representing  partly  a  survival,  partly  a  development  of  the 
fundamental  points  of  that  view  of  the  world  which  was 
achieved  by  the  synthesis  of  mediaeval  religious  doctrines  and 
ancient  philosophy.  And — a  curious  historical  problem — 
the  faction  which,  from  the  standpoint  of  logical  consistency, 
was  and  is  decidedly  and  irremediably  in  the  wrong  has  been 
continually  victorious  in  this  struggle,  has  gradually  wrestled 
away  from  its  opponent  its  whole  domain,  appropriated  all 
the  vital  intellectual  issues,  and  left  to  the  spoiled,  though  not 
subjugated,  enemy  nothing  but  the  empty  and  practically 
useless  consciousness  of  his  eternal  right. 

It  is  not  difficult  to  see  how  this  process  went  along.  The 
triumph  of  realism,  in  any  sphere  of  investigation,  has  not 
consisted  in  a  successful  logical  demonstration  of  the  validity 
of  its  claims  and  methods,  but  simply  in  an  actual  growth  of 
the  number  and  importance  of  the  concrete  particular  prob- 
lems which  it  set  and  solved,  without  concerning  itself  much 
as  to  the  philosophical  justification  of  the  standpoint  assumed 
in  these  problems.  The  defeat  of  idealism,  in  any  sphere  of 
investigation,  was  not  due  to  a  logical  inferiority  of  its  general 
philosophical  doctrine,  but  simply  to  the  fact  that  it  failed  to 
de1*ik)p  a  large  and  continually  growing  body  of  positive 
empirical  knowledge  based  on  idealistic  premises. 


2  CULTURAL  REALITY 

Thus  realism  grew  stronger  with  every  step  and  no  efforts 
could  prevent  idealism  from  losing  ground  continually  in  the 
wide  field  of  intellectual  life  covered  by  empirical  science, 
and  popular  reflection.  Every  particular  realistic  science, 
in  its  beginnings  usually  despised  by  idealistic  philosophy 
for  its  lack  of  logical  perfection,  became  more  and  more 
self-consistent  as  it  developed,  and  some  of  these  sciences 
have  reached  a  level  where  idealism  itself  is  forced  to  treat 
them  as  models  of  systematic  construction.  And  it  can* 
scarcely  deny  to  them  this  tribute,  because  it  has  in  its  past 
days  emphasized  the  importance  and  the  rational  perfection 
of  those  very  organa  which  realistic  sciences  use  in  systematiz- 
ing their  investigations,  i.e.,  the  logic  of  things-substances  and 
the  mathematical  theory  of  functions.  Idealism  has  become 
thus  unable  to  attack  the  internal  organization  of  realistic 
sciences;  it  can  criticize  only  their  foundations,  their  explicit 
or  implicit  epistemological  and  metaphysical  presuppositions. 
Of  course,  as  long  as  a  realistic  science  claims  an  absolute 
validity  for  its  foundations,  idealistic  criticism  has  an  easy 
task  in  showing  the  absurdity  of  such  claims,  in  demonstrat- 
ing, for  example,  that  the  assumption  of  an  absolute 
objectivity  of  geometrical  space  is  self-contradictory  or  that 
the  reduction  of  all  sensual  qualities  to  movements  of  matter 
is  not  a  substitution  of  reality  for  illusion  but  merely  an 
expression  of  all  kinds  of  sensual  data  in  terms  of  one  par- 
ticular kind  of  sensual  data,  a  combination  of  certain  sensa- 
tions of  sight  with  certain  sensations  of  touch  and  of  the 
muscular  sense.  If,  however,  a  realistic  science  begins  to 
base  its  claims  not  on  the  abstract  philosophical  justification 
of  its  presuppositions,  but  on  the  practical  applicability  of  its 
results;  if  it  concedes  that  its  assumptions  cannot  be  dem- 
onstrated a  priori  but  that  they  show  themselves  valid 
a  posteriori  by  the  growing  control  of  reality  which  they  per- 
mit, the  attacks  of  idealism  lose  much  of  their  force.  Per  in 
this  line  also  idealism  itself  has  unconsciously  strengthened  in 


CULTURALISM  3 

advance  the  position  of  realism  by  bringing  forth,  in  order  to 
defend  traditional  religion  and  morahty  against  realistic 
theoretic  analysis,  the  idea  that  practical  claims  can  have  an 
objective  vahdity  of  their  own,  independent  of  theoretic 
criteria;  it  can  therefore  hardly  reject  now  the  test  of  practical 
applicability  to  which  realistic  science  appeals. 

This  is  not  all.  During  the  first  three  centuries  of  its 
development  scientific  realism  was  practically  unable  to  reach 
any  general  view  of  the  world.  Not  only  did  a  large  part  of 
experience  remain  for  a  long  time  outside  of  reaUstic  investiga- 
tions, but  the  connection  between  such  investigations  as  were 
pursued  in  various  sciences  of  nature  was  not  close  enough  to 
become  the  foundation  of  a  consistent  realistic  conception  of 
the  entire  empirical  world.  The  rise  of  a  reahstic  psychol- 
ogy and  sociology  on  the  one  hand,  the  doctrine  of  natural 
evolution  on  the  other,  obviated  these  difficulties  and  led  to 
modern  naturalism — the  most  comprehensive  and  consistent 
realistic  doctrine  ever  reached.  The  application  of  positive 
realistic  methods  to  individual  consciousness  and  to  social 
institutions  brought  within  the  scope  of  naturalistic  science 
a  domain  from  which  idealism  drew  most  of  its  materials;  at 
the  same  time  the  theory  of  evolution  not  only  gave  a  general 
foundation  on  which  all  sciences  of  nature  could  hope  to 
attain  their  metaphysical  unity,  but  bridged  over  the  chasm 
between  man  as  thinking  subject  and  his  object,  the  inorganic 
and  organic  natural  reality  which  he  studies  and  controls. 
By  putting  concrete  problems  concerning  the  development 
of  human  consciousness  out  of  the  elementary  needs  of 
organic  life  and  up  to  its  highest  rational  manifestations, 
modern  naturalism  claims  to  have  actually  and  definitively 
incorporated  man  into  nature.  Reason  itself,  as  manifested 
in  science,  is  then  only  a  continuation  of  the  natural  evolution 
of  the  animal  world,  the  latest  stage  of  adaptation  of  living 
beings  to  their  environment;  and  all  the  forms  of  thinking  on 
which  ideaUsm  constructs  its  systems  are  products  of  the 


4  CULTURAL  REALITY 

natural  reality  and,  as  instruments  of  adaptation,  dependent 
both  on  their  natural  object-matter  and  on  the  natural 
organization  of  the  living  beings  who  use  them. 

On  the  other  hand,  indeed,  ideahsm  preserves  some  of  the 
old  arguments  which  enable  it  to  prove  that  the  naturalistic 
conception  of  the  world  as  a  whole  moves  in  a  vicious  circle. 
It  is  clear  that  natural  evolutionism  presupposes  for  its  own 
validity  the  ideal  validity  of  those  same  principles  of  thought 
and  standards  of  practical  valuation  which  it  tries  to  deduce 
genetically  from  natural  reality.  Ideas  may  be,  indeed, 
instruments  of  real  adaptation  of  the  Hving  being  to  its 
environment,  but  only  if  used  not  as  realities  but  as  ideas 
referring  to  reality  and  logically  valid  or  invalid  in  this  refer- 
ence. The  system  of  ideas  constituting  the  evolutionistic 
theory  itself  certainly  claims  to  be  a  valid  theory  of  reality 
'  and  not  a  mere  part  of  reality.  The  entire  content  of  evolu- 
tionism as  a  rational  system  is  subjected  to  ideal  criteria,  to 
these  very  criteria  which  it  wants  to  deprive  of  their  ideality. 
In  the  measure  in  which  it  succeeds  in  reducing  thought  to 
biological  functions  it  will  make  itself  and  this  very  reduction 
devoid  of  objective  significance;  that  is,  its  claim  of  objective 
significance  for  its  form  proves  it  is  false  in  its  content. 

An  analogous  reasoning  can  be  used  with  regard  to  the  prac- 
tical test  of  natural  science.  If  this  test  is  to  be  objectively 
valid,  it  presupposes  objective  standards  for  appreciating 
practical  activity  as  successful.  But  since  the  practical  test 
is  by  hypothesis  independent  of  theory,  we  cannot  take  as 
the  standard  of  success  the  adaptation  of  the  active  being  to 
its  natural  environment,  for  the  conception  of  the  active  being 
as  a  living  being,  the  conception  of  natural  environment,  and 
the  whole  conception  of  adaptation  have  been  reached  by  a 
purely  theoretic  study  subjected  to  criteria  of  theoretic 
validity.  Therefore,  the  standards  of  practical  success  must 
be  sought  in  the  sphere  of  practical  human  values,  and  they 
can  guarantee  the  objectivity  of  the  practical  test  only  if  they 


CULTURALISM  5 

are  themselves  objective  as  values,  not  merely  as  existential 
data;  that  is,  if  they  are  not  merely  reactions  of  living  beings 
to  their  environment,  as  the  biologist  in  his  character  of  a 
theorist  conceives  them,  but  objective  ideal  values  as  the 
moralist,  the  artist,  the  religious  man,  etc.,  assumes  them. 
The  practical  success  of  the  applications  of  the  natural  sciences 
can  be  thus  a  proof  of  the  objective  bearing  of  these  sciences 
as  instruments  of  adaptation  only  if  we  accept,  besides  theo- 
retic reason,  some  objective  values,  of  the  type  of  the  moral 
values  of  Kantianism,  which  are  not  the  products  of  biological 
evolution  and  by  which  the  practical  results  of  our  activity 
can  be  measured.  If  there  are  no  objective  values  inde- 
pendent of  those  produced  during  the  biological  evolution  of 
the  human  race,  the  test  of  naturalism  by  its  practical  appli- 
cability has  no  objective  significance. 

But  however  binding  the  criticism  which  idealism  opposes 
to  the  theory  of  natural  evolution,  and  we  have  here  merely 
schematized  the  two  central  arguments  among  the  many 
found  in  idealistic  literature,  its  weak  point  is  that  it  has  no 
positive  doctrine  to  oppose  to  it  which  can  solve  the  prob- 
lems put  by  the  theory  of  evolution.  While  naturalism  has 
made  an  enormous  progress  and  undergone  deep  changes 
during  the  last  fifty  years,  idealism  has  remained  on  the 
same  ground  on  which  it  stood  in  the  beginning  of  the  past 
century;  instead  of  nature  as  a  dynamic  and  changing  pro- 
cess it  is  still  facing  nature  as  a  changeless  substance  or  a 
system  of  substances,  as  it  did  when  the  timeless  evolution  of 
the  Hegelian  Idea  seemed  the  limit  of  dynamism.  Is  idealism 
merely  unwilling  to  enter  into  the  heart  of  evolutionistic 
problems,  or  is  it  not  rather  essentially  incapable  of  doing  it  ? 
The  fact  is  that  it  has  lost  all  touch  with  modern  science,  that 
the  present  scientific  issues  are  unable  to  move  it,  and  that 
Platonism,  mediaeval  realism,  Kantianism,  and  Fichteanism 
still  continue  to  be  revived  and  accepted  as  if  nothing  had 
happened  since  their  first  promulgation,  as  if  our  intellectual 


6  CULTURAL  REALITY 

life  were  the  same  as  a  hundred,  a  thousand,  or  even  two 
thousand  years  ago. 

Yet  it  is  clear  that  we  cannot  accept  the  naturalistic  view 
of  the  world  without  violating  most  of  our  highest  stand- 
ards of  intellectual,  moral,  aesthetic,  validity,  standards  which 
have  been  reached  after  innumerable  centuries  of  constructive 
and  critical  activity,  at  the  cost  of  incalculable  efforts  and 
sacrifices.  We  cannot  voluntarily  and  consciously  resign 
ourselves  to  a  doctrine  which  in  the  light  of  theoretic  criticism 
proves  irremediably  self-contradictory;  we  cannot  volun- 
tarily and  consciously  accept  as  guide  of  our  moral  life  a  view 
which  considers  free  creation  a  psychological  illusion  and 
proclaims  the  impossibility  of  bringing  into  the  world  anything 
that  is  not  already  virtually  included  in  it;  we  cannot  admit 
an  interpretation  of  our  aesthetic  life  which  treats  it  as  nothing 
but  a  play.  Above  all,  we  cannot  consciously  agree  to 
look  at  these  our  highest  standards  as  mere  by-products  of 
natural  evolution,  instruments  of  adaptation  of  one  par- 
ticular species  of  living  beings  to  their  natural  environ- 
ment, having  no  other  objective  validity  than  the  one 
derived  from  the  success  of  this  adaptation;  we  cannot 
resign  ourselves,  in  spite  of  all  realistic  argumentation,  to 
be  nothing  but  insignificant  and  transient  fragments  of  a 
whole  which,  while  transcending  us  infinitely,  remains  almost 
unaffected  by  our  existence,  absolutely  indifferent  toward  our 
claims,  and  absolutely  inaccessible  to  our  valuations.  We 
might,  indeed,  train  ourselves  to  become  satisfied  with  natural- 
ism by  lowering  our  standards  and  limiting  our  aspirations, 
forgetting  the  general  problems  of  life  and  knowledge  for  the 
sake  of  the  many  and  various  particular  problems  which 
confront  us  at  every  step  of  our  personal  and  social  activity. 
Such  a  course  would  be  identical  to  that  which  Pascal  pre- 
scribed against  reHgious  doubts  by  advising  the  doubter  to 
follow  in  detail  the  ceremonies  and  prayers  of  the  church 
instead  of  raising  any  fundamental  problems  of  dogma  and 


CULTURALISM  ^ 

morality.  Or  we  might,  like  James,  accept  as  a  matter  of 
personal  belief  any  doctrine  we  need  to  supplement,  for  our 
individual  use,  the  deficiencies  of  naturalism,  an  attitude 
which  has  a  curious  analogy  with  the  attitude  of  the  work- 
man who,  dissatisfied  with  his  everyday  job,  instead  of 
trying  to  learn  a  wider  and  more  interesting  speciality, 
supplemented  the  monotony  of  his  work  by  the  excitement 
of  day-dreams. 

However  insufficient  and  lacking  in  concreteness  and 
vitality  the  idealistic  philosophy  may  be,  it  certainly  has  the 
merit  of  being  a  permanent  protest  against  these  two  extremes 
of  powerless  pessimism  and  of  self-satisfied  intellectual 
Philistinism  to  which  the  naturalistic  view  of  the  world  alter- 
natively leads.  Weak,  inefficient,  and  unfruitful  when 
brought  into  connection  with  concrete  problems  of  actual  life, 
idealism  preserves  nevertheless  some  vestige  of  its  old  impor- 
tance in  the  abstract  domain  of  the  highest  theoretic  and  prac- 
tical standards,  and  this  explains  the  attraction  which  it  still 
has  for  all  those  who,  while  realizing  the  vitality  of  naturalism 
in  particular  fields  and  not  wishing  to  intoxicate  themselves 
with  some  rationally  unjustifiable  faith,  still  refuse  to  resign 
those  aspirations  of  which  Greek  and  mediaeval  philosophy 
were  the  expression,  and  cling  desperately  to  what  is  left  of 
the  old  values  in  modern  philosophic  abstraction. 

This  is,  or  rather  was  still  a  few  years  ago,  the  predominant  i 
situation  of  our  intellectual  life.  The  opposition  of  idealism 
and  naturalism  has  completely  absorbed  the  attention  of 
scientists  and  philosophers.  More  than  this:  it  has  been 
carried  over  into  practical  fields  and  more  or  less  consciously 
identified  with  the  fight  between  social  and  religious  con- 
servatism and  synthetic  traditionalism  on  the  one  hand, 
and  progressive  radicalism  and  analytic  rationalism  on  the 
other. 

By  one  of  the  most  curious  failures  of  observation  ever 
found  in  history,  neither  the  theorists  nor  the  men  of  practice 


8  CULTURAL  REALITY 

involved  in  this  great  struggle  have  ever  noticed  how,  along- 
side with  the  gradual  development,  unification,  and  systemati- 
zation  of  naturalism,  there  had  grown  slowly,  but  ceaselessly, 
an  independent  domain  of  concrete  theoretic  and  practical 
problems  at  least  as  wide  as  that  covered  by  natural  science 
and  technique,  but  remaining  completely  outside  of  the  entire 

,  opposition  of  idealism  and  realism  and  implying  a  view  of  the 
world  entirely  different  from  both.  We  mean,  of  course,  the 
domain  of  investigations  and  practical  problems  concerning 
human  culture  in  its  historical  past  and  its  actual  development 
— politics,  economics,  morality,  art,  language,  literature, 
religion,  knowledge.  Certain  schools  of  psychology  and 
sociology  have  tried  indeed  to  reduce  cultural  evolution  to 
natural  evolution;  but,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  this  reduction 
remains  only  a  postulate  and,  as  we  shall  see  in  detail  later  on, 
the  essential  and  objectively  significant  side  of  cultural  life 

4/remains  forever  inaccessible  to  naturalistic  science.  On  the 
other  hand,  certain  idealistic  currents  appealed  to  history  for 
help  in  determining  the  content  and  the  meaning  of  the 
absolute  values  which  they  exposed  and  defended;  but  they 
did  not  see  that  the  historical  and  absolutistic  standpoints  are 
irreconcilable  by  their  very  logical  essence  and  that  to  search 
in  history  for  a  justification  of  any  absolute  values  is  simply 
self-contradictory. 

We  can,  however,  hardly  wonder  that  neither  the  realistic 
scientist  nor  the  idealistic  philosopher  sees  the  full  significance 
of  the  great  problem  of  cultural  evolution,  since  even  those 
who  are  most  immediately  interested  in  this  problem — the 
historians  and  the  active  and  conscious  builders  of  culture — 
scarcely  begin  to  realize  that  their  work  has  a  much  more 
general  and  fundamental  intellectual  meaning  than  a  mere 
description  of  some  past  cultural  happening  or  a  mere  modi- 
fication of  some  present  cultural  situation.  The  reason  is 
easy  to  understand.  Whatever  new  and  original  contribu- 
tions the  cultural  workers  ever  brought  to  our  methods  of 


CULTURALISM  g 

studying  and  controlling  the  world  were  produced  and  offered 
in  connection  with  particular  problems  put  within  the  limits 
of  special  cultural  sciences  or  special  fields  of  cultural  practice. 
Thus  the  wider  meaning  of  each  such  contribution  was  sel- 
dom seen  at  once  and  the  fundamental  unity  of  standpoint 
underlying  all  cultural  sciences  and  reflective  cultural  practice 
was  very  slow  to  develop,  slower  even  than  in  natural  sciences 
and  technique,  for  as  a  matter  of  fact,  there  has  always  been 
a  more  far-going  specialization  in  the  sciences  of  culture  than 
in  the  sciences  of  nature  and  the  intellectual  connection 
between  special  problems  has  been  therefore  more  difficult  to 
establish  in  this  field.  Moreover,  the  sciences  of  culture,  for 
many  reasons,  have  been  so  far  unable  to  reach  the  same 
relative  degree  of  methodical  perfection  as  the  sciences  of 
nature,  and  this  has  prevented  them  from  becoming  as  con- 
scious of  their  own  significance  as  the  latter.  Finally,  as 
we  shall  have  many  opportunities  to  see,  the  entire  logical 
and  metaphysical  foundation  of  both  natural  science  and 
ideaHstic  philosophy  represents  a  more  primary  stage  of 
intellectual  activity  than  that  required  by  cultural  science,  so 
that  the  statement  of  problems  of  knowledge  in  terms  of 
natural  realism  or  idealism  seems  so  much  simpler  and  easier 
in  this  relatively  early  period  of  theoretic  evolution  in  which 
we  live  as  to  appear  almost  self-evident  and  to  exclude  any 
attempt  to  transgress  its  limitations. 

But  if  all  these  reasons  explain  why  the  theoretic  implica- 
tions of  cultural  sciences  have  been  scarcely  noticed  and 
intellectual  interest  has  concentrated  during  the  past  century 
and  a  half  on  the  various  phases  of  the  idealism-realism  con- 
troversy, no  reason  can  justify  at  present  a  continuation  of 
this  policy.  Naturalism  has  reached  the  summit  of  its  power 
with  the  theory  of  evolution  and,  while  always  still  able  to 
extend  its  presuppositions  and  methods  to  new  data,  it  can 
no  longer  produce,  at  the  present  moment  at  least,  any  funda- 
mentally new  standpoints;   it  may  still  change  in  detail  but 


lO  CULTURAL  REALITY 

not  in  its  essential  outlines  as  a  general  view  of  the  world.  It 
has  become  a  complete  system  with  definite  foundations  and 
a  defmite  framework  in  a  great  measure  filled  out.  There  is, 
indeed,  a  very  large  place  left  for  new  content,  for  new  results 
of  particular  scientific  investigations,  but  the  framework 
cannot  be  modified  any  further  without  ruining  the  whole 
building.  This  may  come  some  day,  but  certainly  not  now, 
when  there  is  still  so  much  to  do  before  the  building  is  com- 
pleted. On  the  other  hand  we  have  seen  traditional  idealism 
unable  not  only  to  develop  any  fundamentally  new  stand- 
points, but  even  to  extend  its  old  doctrines  to  any  new  data. 
It  is  evident  that  the  time  has  come  to  search  for  some  new 
view  of  the  world,  more  comprehensive,  more  productive,  and 
more  able  to  grow  by  creative  additions. 

By  a  view  of  the  world  we  mean  here  not  merely  an  abstract 
philosophical  doctrine,  but  a  complex  of  concrete  intellectual 
functions  manifested  in  numerous  particular  acts  of  investiga- 
tion and  reflection  in  various  fields  of  theoretic  and  practical 
life  and  culminating  in  an  intellectual  ideal.  As  examples  we 
can  quote,  besides  modern  naturalism,  the  Greek  rationalism 
of  the  fourth  century  B.C.,  the  later  Stoicism  and  Epicu- 
reanism, neo-Platonism,  mediaeval  Aristotehsm.  It  is  evi- 
dent that  a  view  of  the  world  in  this  sense  cannot  be  created 
by  a  single  thinker:  it  is  the  accumulated  product  of  whole 
generations;  it  arises  slowly,  thanks  to  many  efforts  of 
synthesis,  out  of  innumerable  scattered  activities,  and,  after 
being  unified  and  formulated  as  an  explicit  ideal,  goes  on 
developing  by  many  various  and  unexpected  applications. 
It  is  clear  therefore  that  no  new  view  of  the  world  can  be 
substituted  at  the  present  moment  in  the  place  of  naturalism, 
however  unsatisfied  we  may  be  by  the  latter,  unless  such  a 
view  has  already  been  gradually  developing  in  concrete  intel- 
lectual fife  and  is  sufficiently  mature  to  fiLnd  its  explicit  expres- 
sion in  an  intellectual  ideal.  This  makes  it  evident  that  a 
revolution  of  our  intellectual  life  such  as  is  demanded  by  the 


CULTURALISM  II 

present  situation  cannot  come  from  any  other  source  than 
from  the  domain  of  cultural  science  and  practice,  because  this 
is  the  only  field  outside  of  naturalism  where  a  creative  intel- 
lectual development  has  been  going  on  in  modern  times.  The 
only  question  is  whether  the  synthetic  activity  in  this  domain 
has  already  reached  the  point  where  we  can  formulate  the 
fundamental  aims  of  cultural  science  and  practice  and  attain 
thus  an  intellectual  ideal  sufficiently  unified  and  sufficiently 
wide,  not  only  to  take  the  place  of  naturalism,  but  to 
include,  besides  the  positive  elements  of  naturalism  itself, 
all  those  important  principles  of  our  intellectual  hfe  for 
which  naturalism  found  no  place. 

Whether  this  is  possible  to  fulfil  only  actual  attempts  can 
show.  Certainly  such  attempts  are  now,  if  ever,  indis- 
pensable. Not  only  is  a  new  ideal  needed  to  satisfy  the 
demand  for  a  harmonization  and  modification  of  our  complex 
and  scattered  intellectual  activities,  but  the  time  has  come 
when,  for  all  actual  human  purposes,  the  most  intense  reflec- 
tion must  be  concentrated  on  the  field  of  culture.  It  is  more 
and  more  generally  recognized,  particularly  since  the  outbreak 
of  the  present  cultural  crisis,  that  we  have  permitted  ourselves 
to  be  blinded  by  the  successes  of  natural  science  and  material 
technique  and  have  failed  to  bring  a  consistent,  self-conscious, 
and  critical  intellectual  attitude  into  the  domain  of  cultural 
science  and  practice,  so  that  the  results  attained  in  this 
domain,  however  important  by  themselves,  are  very  insuffi- 
cient if  compared  with  the  number  of  failures  at  the  cost  of 
which  they  have  been  reached  and  if  measured  by  the  scale 
of  demands  which  can  and  should  be  put  in  the  name  of 
cultural  progress.  At  present  our  attention  is  forcibly 
attracted  to  this  domain,  and  it  is  clear  that  we  shall  have 
to  face,  for  the  next  two  or  three  generations  at  least,  such 
problems  of  cultural  construction  as  will  require  all  our 
creative  and  critical  powers.  Needless  to  say  that  we  are 
very  inadequately  prepared  for  this  task,  particularly  in  so 


12  CULTURAL  REALITY 

far  as  theory  is  concerned,  in  spite  of  the  enormous  accumula- 
tion of  materials  during  the  past  few  centuries.  This  inade- 
quacy manifests  itself  chiefly  in  two  respects.  First,  we  lack 
laws  of  cultural  becoming  which  would  give  us  means  of 
controlling  the  cultural  world  as  we  control  the  natural  world. 
Secondly,  we  lack  objective  and  applicable  standards  of 
appreciation  of  cultural  values  which  would  permit  us  to 
organize  the  aims  of  our  constructive  activities  so  as  to  avoid 
wasting  our  energies  in  useless  fights  and  destroying  almost 
as  much  as  we  create. 

Now,  while  laws  are  found  only  by  empirical  investigation 
of  particular  problems  and  aims  are  created  only  in  particular 
actual  pursuits,  the  history  of  cultural  science  and  practice 
shows  with  a  perfect  evidence  that  the  present  unsatisfactory 
situation  in  both  lines  is  directly  due  to  the  lack  of  a  general 
understanding  of  culture,  to  the  lack  of  a  view  of  the  world 
based  on  cultural  experience.  The  theorist  of  culture  asso- 
ciated scientific  laws  with  naturaUsm,  so  that  when  he  foimd 
that  the  laws  of  natural  sciences  did  not  apply  to  culture,  his 
immediate  reaction  was  to  proclaim  cultural  becoming  to  be 
essentially  inaccessible  to  any  method  which  tries  to  deter- 
mine laws  of  becoming.  The  builder  of  culture  associated 
objective  standards  of  appreciation  and  selection  of  aims  with 
the  idealistic  search  for  absolute  values,  and  when  he  saw  that 
absolute  valuation  could  not  be  applied  to  cultural  experience 
he  proclaimed  concrete  cultural  life  to  be  inaccessible  to  any 
standardization  and  hierarchization  of  values,  to  be  a  chaos  of 
valuations  whose  only  justification  is  their  existence. 

The  fundamental  and  distinctive  characters  of  cultural 
data  which  were  discovered  in  the  course  of  positive  empirical 
investigations  or  found  in  concrete  constructive  activities 
were  thus  formulated  negatively,  in  terms  of  opposition  to 
naturalism  or  idealism,  instead  of  being  formulated  positively 
in  terms  of  their  own.  The  scientist  and  the  practical  man 
were  accustomed  to  see  no  other  possible  order  of  becoming 


CULTURALISM  13 

than  the  order  of  nature,  no  other  possible  order  of  appreciation 
and  aims  than  the  idealistic  order  of  absolute  values,  because 
their  world  as  a  whole  was  the  world  of  material  things  and  of 
individual  or  social  conscious  processes,  subjected  to  laws  of 
natural  causaHty  and,  eventually,  to  principles  of  ideal 
finality.  Cultural  data  had  to  comply  with  this  double 
causal  and  final  order  as  well  as  they  could;  they  were  not 
supposed  to  have  any  positive  order  of  their  own,  because  they 
did  not  constitute  the  world,  because  in  reflecting  about  them, 
in  philosophizing  about  them,  the  theorist  or  the  builder  of 
culture  saw  in  them,  not  a  unified  and  ordered  totaHty  of 
experience,  but  only  a  pluraHty  of  detached  phenomena,  each 
separately  rooting  in  the  consciousness  of  human  beings  and 
in  their  natural  environment  and  each  separately  drawing 
whatever  objective  meaning  it  might  possess  from  its  reference 
to  the  ''kingdom  of  ends,"  to  the  absolute  order  of  super- 
worldly  values.^ 

If  thus,  on  the  one  hand,  the  predominance  of  ideahsm 
and  naturalism  in  modern  thought  has  prevented  the  new  view 
of  the  world  implied  by  cultural  knowledge  and  practice  from 
developing  more  rapidly  and  manifesting  itself  explicitly  in  a 
conscious  intellectual  ideal,  the  lack  of  such  an  explicit  formu- 
lation of  this  view  has,  on  the  other  hand,  contributed  to  keep 
cultural  knowledge  and  practice  under  the  domination  of 
ideaHsm  and  naturalism  and  prevented  them  from  becoming 
more  efficient  and  from  developing  consciously  and  methodi- 
cally along  their  own  independent  fines.     This  shows  with 

'  There  were,  as  we  know,  attempts  to  conceive  the  totality  of  cultural 
phenomena  as  constituting  a  unified  and  ordered  world,  not  the  world,  indeed, 
but  a  world  at  least,  distinct  from  the  world  of  nature.  But  the  Hegelian 
historical  school  to  which  these  attempts  were  almost  exclusively  confined  was 
completely  dependent  on  idealism.  By  treating  culture  as  gradual  manifesta- 
tion of  absolute  values,  by  exaggerating  its  unity,  and  by  assuming  an  entirely 
arbitrary  order  of  cultural  becoming,  it  had  discouraged  subsequent  efforts 
in  this  line  even  before  realism  extended  the  theory  of  natural  evolution  to  this 
field  and  attracted  general  attention  by  this  attempt  to  absorb  definitively 
culture  into  nature. 


14  CULTURAL  REALITY 

particular  clearness  the  necessity  of  collaboration  between 
philosophy  and  particular  sciences,  a  collaboration  which  has 
become  lately  very  imperfect.  The  role  of  philosophy  in  the 
past  has  been  certainly  incomparably  more  important  than 
it  is  now.  This  importance  was  due  to  the  fact  that  phi- 
losophy was  a  special  discipline,  with  its  own  field  of  investiga- 
tion, its  own  perfectly  elaborated  and  efficient  methods,  and 
at  the  same  time  from  its  own  standpoint  was  able  to  supervise 
the  entire  field  of  knowledge  and  practice  and  to  outline  general 
intellectual  ideals  which  scientific  and  practical  activities 
could  follow  with  a  profit  to  themselves.  Now,  the  peculiar 
modern  intellectual  conditions  sketched  above  had,  among 
other  consequences,  the  effect  of  ahnost  entirely  separating 
philosophy  as  a  special  discipline  from  philosophy  as  a  syn- 
thetic, dynamic  unity  of  other  disciplines.  As  a  particular 
branch  of  knowledge,  with  its  own  aims  and  standards, 
philosophy  is  ideahstic  and  critical;  it  has  preserved  or  even 
increased  its  methodical  perfection,  but,  as  we  have  seen,  it 
has  nothing  new  to  say,  no  vital  ideals  to  give  to  science  and 
practice.  As  a  dynamic  unity  of  other  disciplines,  philosophy 
is  reaHstic  and  constructive;  it  has,  indeed,  given  new  and 
vital  ideals;  without  it  natural  science  and  social  life  would 
not  be  what  they  are;  but  these  ideals,  as  we  have  seen,  are 
narrow  and  uncritical  and  represent  a  striking  lowering  of 
philosophical  standards  as  compared  with  the  past. 

If  we  claim  therefore  that  it  is  time  to  substitute  a  new 
culturaHstic  philosophy  for  both  idealism  and  naturalism,  it 
is  because  we  believe  that  a  systematic  and  explicit  philo- 
sophical study  of  culture  will  both  regenerate  philosophy,  in 
the  same  way  as  in  the  sixteenth  and  seventeenth  centuries 
contact  with  nature  regenerated  it  when  it  was  slowly  dying 
between  scholasticism  and  occultism,  and  give  us  the  most 
powerful  instrument  possible  for  the  progress  of  concrete 
cultural  sciences  and  concrete  cultural  creation.  Our  scien- 
tific knowledge  and  reflective  control  of  culture  can  reach  a 


CULTURALISM  1$ 

level  superior  or  even  equal  to  that  of  our  knowledge  and 
control  of  nature  only  with  the  help  of  an  independent, 
systematic,  and  productive  philosophy  of  culture. 

THE   THESIS   OF  CULTURALISM 

We  shall  use  the  term  "  culturaHsm "  for  the  view  of  the 
world  which  should  be  constructed  on  the  ground  of  the 
implicit  or  explicit  presuppositions  involved  in  reflection  about 
cultural  phenomena.  Let  us  try  to  formulate  first  of  all  the 
most  general  of  these  presuppositions. 

The  progress  of  knowledge  about  culture  demonstrates 
more  and  more  concretely  the  historical  relativity  of  all  human 
values,  including  science  itself.  The  image  of  the  world 
which  we  construct  is  a  historical  value,  relative  like  all 
others,  and  a  different  one  will  take  its  place  in  the  future, 
even  as  it  has  itself  taken  the  place  of  another  image.  Yester- 
day man  conceived  himself  as  part  of  an  invisible,  spiritual 
society,  and  regarded  the  visible  material  nature  as  an  instru- 
ment created  exclusively  for  his  purposes ;  today  he  conceives 
himself  as  part  and  product  of  the  visible  material  nature; 
tomorrow  he  will  reject  this  conception  as  naive  and  uncritical 
and  find  a  new  one,  and  so  on.  More  than  this.  The  methods 
with  which  he  operates  in  studying  and  controlling  the  natural 
world;  the  principles  which  he  applies,  consciously  or  not,  to 
his  material  environment;  the  logic  which  he  uses  in  isolating 
and  determining  things  and  their  relations;  his  very  ways  of 
perceiving  the  sensual  reality,  have  changed  more  or  less 
slowly,  but  perceptibly,  even  during  the  short  historically 
known  period  of  cultural  evolution,  and  will  change  still  more. 
History  of  culture  is  the  only  field  in  which  we  can  follow 
directly  and  empirically  at  least  a  part  of  the  evolution  of  the 
human  "mind,"  and  the  only  theory  of  mind  which  can  be 
directly  based  upon  empirical  data  is  therefore  a  theory  which 
takes  mind  as  a  product  of  culture.  The  theories  of  the  old 
type  of  idealism  are  in  disaccordance  with  experience,  for 


l6  CULTURAL  REALITY 

they  conceive  mind,  individual  consciousness  or  super- 
individual  reason,  as  absolute  and  changeless,  whereas 
history  shows  it  relative  and  changing.  The  theories  of 
modern  naturalism  are  not  empirical,  for  the  pre-cultural 
evolution  of  consciousness,  whatever  it  was,  has  left  no 
historical  traces  by  which  it  can  be  directly  reconstructed; 
the  entire  genetic  conception  of  biological  evolutionism  is 
based  on  indirect  inference  and  cannot  be  accepted  even  as  a 
metaphysical  doctrine,  since  it  leads,  as  we  have  seen,  to  a  self- 
contradiction. 

Hundreds  of  thousands  of  years  of  cultural  life  have 
agglomerated  such  an  enormous  mass  of  habits  and  traditions 
that  man  is  absolutely  unable  to  perceive  or  to  conceive  any 
other  nature  than  the  one  he  sees  through  the  prisma  of 
culture,  absolutely  unable  to  act  upon  nature  otherwise  than 
in  culturally  determined  ways.  Our  whole  world,  without  any 
exceptions,  is  permeated  with  culture,  and  we  can  no  more 
imagine  what  was  the  world  of  our  pre-human  ancestors  than 
we  can  imagine  the  fourth  dimension.  There  is  no  way  out 
of  culture.  The  study  of  the  animal  or  of  the  child  ?  But  we 
must  either  interpret  their  consciousness  by  analogy  with  our 
consciousness,  identifying  the  world  as  given  to  them  with 
the  world  as  given  to  us,  or  else  we  study  their  behavior  as  a 
part  of  the  processes  going  on  in  our  world  and  their  behavior 
is  seen  by  us  as  is  everything  else,  through  the  prisma  of  cul- 
ture. Our  own  childhood  remembrances  ?  But  we  found  our- 
selves from  the  very  beginning  in  a  cultural  world,  and  our 
cultural  training  began  much  earlier  than  our  memory  can 
reach;  moreover,  every  later  addition  to  our  cultural  stock  has 
modified  the  form  and  content  of  our  first  memories.  The 
study  of  the  organism  ?  But  the  organism,  our  own  or  that 
of  any  other  being,  as  seen  by  us  while  studying  it,  is  also  a 
part  of  our  culturally  conditioned  world.  Its  sensual  image, 
all  the  meanings  of  this  image,  all  the  connections  that  we 
find  between  it  and  the  rest  of  material  reality,  all  the  con- 


CULTURALISM  17 

nections  between  the  elements  of  this  image,  even  the  manual 
acts  by  which  we  prepare  it  for  anatomical  or  physiological 
studies,  even  the  acts  by  which  we  turn  our  attention  to  it, 
are  products  of  culture  to  a  degree  which  we  are  unable  to 
determine — and  how  much  more  the  theory  which  we 
construct  on  the  basis  of  all  this ! 

Naturalism  will  here  interpose  the  argument  that  the 
practical  efficiency  of  our  adaptation  to  nature  guarantees 
some  kind  of  accordance  between  nature  in  itself  and  our 
images  of  it.  We  cannot  avail  ourselves  of  the  opposite 
argument  of  idealism,  as  that  presupposes  the  existence  of 
absolute  values,  whereas  we  reject  absolute  values,  both  in 
the  explicit  claims  of  idealism  and  in  the  implicit  assumptions 
of  naturalism.  But  the  argument  from  practical  success  does 
not  prove  anything  in  favor  of  naturalism  or  against  cultural- 
ism,  for  it  justifies  as  well  any  one  of  the  images  of  the  world 
which  have  been  advocated  and  discarded  during  the  process 
of  cultural  evolution,  and  it  may  be  used  in  the  future  to 
justify  quite  different  images  from  the  one  which  modern 
naturalism  defends.^  Our  success  depends  on  our  claims  and 
on  the  part  or  side  of  reality  to  which  we  apply  those  claims : 
our  claims  are  one-sided  and  limited,  and  the  range  within 
which  we  attempt  to  realize  them  does  not  include  the  entire 
empirical  world,  but  only  relatively  few  phenomena  taken 
from  a  certain  standpoint.  Therefore  to  the  savage  his 
magical  technique  seems  as  successful  as  scientific  technique 
seems  to  the  modern  engineer. 

The  argument  becomes  more  serious  when  it  appeals 
not  to  the  mere  fact  of  the  relative  success  of  a  certain 
technique  at  a  certain  period,  which  must  be  always  appre- 
ciated from  the  viewpoint  of  those  who  use  the  technique, 
but  to  the  absolute  growth  of  the  range  of  control  which 
we  exercise  over  nature.     Our  savage  ancestors  may  have 

'  The  very  concept  of  adaptation  of  the  conscious  being  to  its  environment 
is,  as  we  shall  see  later  on,  philosophically  unacceptable. 


l8  CULTURAL  REALITY 

been   as  successful  in  attaining  things  which  they  wanted 
as  we  are  in  attaining  things  which  we  want,  and  the  pro- 
portion of  their  unsatisfied  claims  to  those  which  they  could 
satisfy  may  not  have  been  any  larger  than  ours,  but  we 
want  and  attain  incomparably  more  than  they  did.     This  is 
clear;   but  in  order  to  conclude  from  this  that  our  image  of 
the  world  has  grown  more  objectively  true  than  theirs  we 
should  have  to  assume  that  man  and  nature  as  given  to  man 
have  remained  essentially  unchanged:    the  growing  range  of 
our  control  of  nature  would  then  have  no  other  explanation 
than  a  more  perfect  adaptation  of  our  image  of  the  world 
to   the  world  itself.     Now,   such  an  assumption  would  be 
manifestly  false.     Our  knowledge  has  indeed  become  much 
wider  and  more  methodical,  but  its  development  is  only  a 
fragment  of  the  general  development  of  man  and  of  the  world, 
and  it  would  need  a  special  and  long  investigation  to  show 
what  part  of  our  present  wider  range  of  control  is  due  to  the 
higher  stage  of  our  knowledge  and  what  part  to  other  factors. 
Besides,  the  relation  between  knowledge  and  practice  may  be 
quite  different  from  that  which  naturahsm  assumes.     What- 
ever it  may  be,  it  is  clear  that  if  we  want  more  and  attain 
more  than  our  ancestors  did,  it  is  not  merely  because  our 
knowledge  is  more  perfect,  but  because  our  whole  personalities 
are  richer,  better  organized  and  more  creative,  and  because 
the  world  contains  for  us  more  and  means  to  us  more;   in  a 
word,  because  our  selves  and  our  world  are  products  of  a 
longer  cultural  development. 

However,  if  an  investigation  of  the  history  of  culture  shows 
the  relativity  of  any  naturalistic  view  of  the  world,  it  does  not 
lead  to  idealism  in  any  sense.  We  have  above  referred  to  mind, 
and  to  our  ways  of  perceiving  and  conceiving  the  world,  using 
the  traditional  terminology,  but  we  do  not  mean  to  imply 
that,  the  world  of  things-in-themselves  remaining  unchanged, 
only  the  mind  has  evolved  in  its  ways  of  perceiving  and  conceiv- 
ing them,  or  that  the  world  is  not  a  world  of  real  nature  at 


CULTURALISM  19 

all,  but  only  immanent  data  of  individual  or  super-individual 
consciousness.  The  point  is  not  that  the  world  as  men  see  and 
conceive  it  is  not  the  world  as  it  really  is,  but  that  the  world 
as  men  see  and  conceive  it  and  as  it  really  is  changes  during 
cultural  evolution,  and  that  therefore  our  present  nature, 
being  objectively  such  as  we  see  it,  is  quite  different  from 
pre-human  nature,  for  it  is,  in  a  measure  which  it  is  impossible 
to  determine  a  priori,  a  product  of  cultural  evolution. 

We  may  agree  that  human  culture  has  not  brought  it  out 
of  nothingness,  that  it  found  a  pre-human  world  ready  as 
material  for  further  development,  but  it  has  modified  it  so 
deeply,  not  only  by  technical  invention,  but  by  sensual  and 
intellectual,  social  and  economic,  aesthetic,  religious,  and  moral 
activities,  and  in  modifying  it  has  evolved  so  many  and  vari- 
ous types  of  these  activities,  so  many  new  ways  for  future 
modifications,  that  whatever  this  pre-human  world  may  have 
been,  none  of  the  generalizations  of  our  knowledge  based  on 
our  now  existing  world  can  be  true  of  that  distant  past.  Our 
science  of  nature  is  valid  when  applied  to  our  present  natural 
reality,  but  not  valid  if  extended  to  nature  as  it  was  before  the 
appearance  of  humanity.  Our  astronomical,  physical,  geo- 
logical, biological  theories  hold  true  of  nature  only  for  the 
relatively  short  historical  period  during  which  the  character 
of  reality  has  not  fundamentally  changed.  When  projected 
into  a  more  distant  past,  our  scientific  conceptions  lead  to 
more  or  less  fantastic  images  of  the  world  as  it  might  have 
been  if  it  had  been  and  remained  continually  as  it  is  now, 
except  for  those  changes  which,  according  to  the  present 
character  of  natural  reality,  should  have  occurred  between 
the  imagined  moment  of  the  past  and  the  present  moment. 
An  analogous  limitation  makes  all  scientific  prophecies  about 
future  states  of  the  world  appear  the  more  fantastic,  the  more 
distant  the  imagined  state.  In  other  words,  our  science  of  ; 
nature  is  in  its  proper  field  when  it  searches  for  abstract  ' 
definitions  and  for  the  laws  of  the  present  reality,  and  when 


20  CULTURAL  REALITY 

it  uses  them  to  reconstruct  and  to  control  this  reaHty,  but  it 
transcends  its  domain  and  is  mere  imagination  whenever  it 
tries  to  reconstruct  the  unique  concrete  evolution  during 
which  the  world  and  man  have  become  what  they  are  or  to 
foresee  the  concrete  unique  course  of  the  future  evolution  of 
the  world  or  of  man.  This  means,  for  example,  that  all 
attempts  to  understand  the  pre-human  evolution  of  the  solar 
system,  of  earth,  of  the  organic  world,  of  consciousness,  etc., 
are  irremediably  devoid  of  objective  validity  if  pursued,  as 
they  are  now,  exclusively  by  naturalistic  methods  and  based 
upon  the  naturalistic  view,  for  they  can  never,  not  even 
hypothetically,  reconstruct  the  past  as  it  really  was,  but  only 
as  it  might  have  been  if  certain  impossible  conditions  had 
been  realized.  The  only  merit  of  the  theory  of  natural  evolu- 
tion, aside  from  its  particular  applications  to  specific  present 
happenings,  is  that  in  its  extension  over  the  entire  past  of 
nature  it  satisfies  the  philosophical  aspirations  of  the  modern 
scientist  by  permitting  him  to  construct  a  monistic  system  of 
the  universe.  But  this  merit  is  a  doubtful  one,  for  natural- 
istic monism  prevents  the  application  of  a  more  adequate 
standpoint  to  the  history  of  the  world. 

If  we  want,  indeed,  to  understand  the  past  of  the  world 
as  it  really  was,  assuming  that  we  may  take  for  granted  at  this 
point  that  there  is  a  possibility  of  developing  proper  methods 
of  reconstructing  past  phenomena,  we  shall  evidently  first  of 
all  study  the  nearest  and  most  accessible  past,  that  is,  the 
historical  period  of  evolution.  By  careful  analysis  of  the 
history  of  culture  we  can  determine  the  gradual  additions 
brought  during  the  historical  existence  of  humanity  to  its 
own  consciousness  and  to  the  world  as  given  to  it  at  various 
moments.  We  cannot  tell  in  advance  how  far  into  the  past 
we  shall  be  able  to  go,  nor  how  much  will  be  left  of  our  world 
when  we  have  subtracted  all  the  cultural  additions  the  origin 
of  which  we  can  determine  directly  from  historical  traces. 
We  can  only  hope  that  this  investigation  will  bring  to  our  hand 


CULTURALISM  21 

principles  which  will  permit  us  to  extend  hypothetically  our 
theories  beyond  the  historical  pa^t,  into  the  pre-historical 
period ;  we  can  obtain  materials  for  this  hypothetical  indirect 
determination  of  the  past  from  ethnographical  studies  of  still 
existing  lower  stages  of  culture.  Then,  and  only  then,  by  a 
still  more  hypothetical  extension  we  can  try  to  reach  the  still 
more  distant  period  of  pre-human  evolution,  and  at  this  point 
only  we  may  be  able  to  use  the  data  of  natural  sciences  as 
raw  material.  Our  method  should  then  be  a  special  analysis 
subtracting  from  these  data  everything  which  has  been  proved 
to  be  an  addition  posterior  to  that  moment  of  the  past  that 
we  are  trying  to  reconstruct. 

How  this  investigation  can  be  done  in  detail  is  a  complex 
problem  of  methodology.  For  a  general  view  of  the  world  the 
fundamental  points  are  that  the  concrete  empirical  world  is  a 
world  in  evolution  in  which  nothing  absolute  or  permanent 
can  be  found,  and  that  as  a  world  in  evolution  it  is  first  of  all 
a  world  of  culture,  not  of  nature,  a  historical,  not  a  physical 
reality.  Idealism  and  naturalism  both  deal,  not  with  the 
concrete  empirical  world,  but  with  abstractly  isolated  aspects 
of  it.  Idealism  continues  to  treat  evolution  as  a  merely 
phenomenal  matter  and  tries  still  to  find  some  immovable 
ground  above  the  moving  stream  without  seeing  that  to  have 
any  significance  at  all  in  the  development  of  knowledge  it 
must  remain  in  the  stream  and  move  with  it :  that  is,  it  must 
cease  to  be  idealism.  Naturalism  wants  indeed  to  reconstruct 
evolution,  but  it  takes  an  abstract  cross-section  of  the  concrete 
becoming  and  attempts  to  understand  the  becoming  by 
studying  this  cross-section.  If  therefore  modern  thought 
intends  to  avoid  the  emptiness  of  idealism  and  the  self- 
contradictions  of  naturahsm,  it  must  accept  the  culturalistic 
thesis.  It  must  maintain  against  idealism  the  imiversal 
historical  relativity  of  all  forms  of  reason  and  standards  of 
valuation  as  being  within,  not  above,  the  evolving  empirical 
world.     It  must  maintain  against  naturalism  that  man  as  he 


22  CULTURAL  REALITY 

is  now  is  not  a  product  of  the  evolution  of  nature,  but  that, 
on  the  contrary,  nature  as  it  is  now  is,  in  a  large  measure  at 
least,  the  product  of  human  culture,  and  if  there  is  anything 
in  it  which  preceded  man,  the  way  to  find  this  leads  through 
historical  and  social  sciences,  not  through  biology,  geology, 
astronomy,  or  physics. 

But  it  is  much  easier  to  formulate  the  culturalistic  thesis 
and  to  show  in  the  abstract  the  necessity  of  its  acceptance 
than  to  develop  its  consequences  in  concrete  application  to  the 
empirical  world.  The  better  we  understand  what  a  radical 
revolution  of  all  our  intellectual  dogmas  the  realization  of 
such  a  thesis  would  demand,  the  greater  appear  the  difficulties. 
For,  on  the  one  hand,  naturalism  seems  to  be  simply  a  system- 
atic and  logical  development  of  a  view  of  reality  which  is 
implied  not  only  by  our  common-sense  reflection,  but  by  our 
practical  activity,  by  our  language,  by  the  very  logic  which  our 
knowledge  has  to  use.  On  the  other  hand,  idealism  with  its 
search  for  the  absolute,  with  its  tendency  to  rise  above  the 
relativity  of  historical  becoming,  seems  to  express  a  necessary 
and  fundamental  condition  of  our  thought  which  cannot 
conceive  itself  as  being  a  fragment  of  a  dynamic  development, 
cannot  immerge  itself  back  into  the  stream  from  which  it  has 
just  emerged  by  the  very  act  of  constructing  or  accepting  a 
truth,  a  good,  a  beauty,  or  any  other  value. 

In  order  to  overcome  these  apparent  difficulties,  we  must 
go  to  the  very  bottom  of  the  problem  of  reality  and  thought 
and  try  to  determine  their  general  empirical  character  as 
independently  as  possible  of  the  implicit  or  explicit  assump- 
tions which  common  sense,  practice,  language,  science,  and 
philosophical  tradition  tend  to  impose  upon  our  conceptions 
of  the  world.  This  does  not  mean  that  we  should  attempt 
to  build  a  philosophical  theory  by  intentionally  ignoring  all 
those  assumptions  and  starting  ab  ovo  as  if  nobody  had 
philosophized  before.  On  the  contrary,  the  history  of  philos- 
ophy shows  that  such  attempts  at  absolutely  new  beginnings 


CULTURALISM  23 

involve  the  danger  of  accepting  uncritically  many  assump- 
tions which  a  less  pretentious  method  would  avoid.  There 
are  no  absolutely  new  beginnings,  no  fundamental  original 
truths  which  a  philosopher  can  find  at  the  outset  of  his 
reflection  and  which  would  make  him  independent  at  once. 
The  only  way  to  avoid  the  undesirable  influence  of  past  or 
present  uncritical  prepossessions  concerning  the  problem 
which  we  are  studying  is  to  find  them  out  by  critical  research, 
to  understand  their  proper  significance,  to  keep  them  con- 
tinually in  mind,  and  to  use  them  in  their  proper  connection. 
For  there  is  no  conception  in  the  history  of  knowledge  which 
does  not  have  some  validity,  no  methodical  assumption  ever 
used  which  does  not  have  some  sphere  of  appHcation;  the 
only  question  is,  Within  what  limits  is  the  conception  valid  ? 
For  what  purposes  can  the  method  be  utilized  ? 


CHAPTER  II 
EXPERIENCE  AND  REFLECTION 

THE  ELEMENTARY  EMPIRICAL  FORMS   OF   EXPERIENCE 

The  primary  problem  of  all  philosophy  is  the  problem  of 
the  most  general  characters  of  experience  and  of  reflection. 
For  no  object-matter  of  knowledge  can  escape  the  necessity 
of  being  given  in  individual  experience  and  no  theory  can 
escape  the  necessity  of  being  the  product  of  logical  reflection. 
Though  this  double  necessity  does  not  impose  any  permanent 
limitations  upon  the  content  of  the  world  and  the  meaning  of 
knowledge,  though  the  former  can  indefinitely  transcend  the 
data  of  individual  experience,  and  the  latter  leads  far  beyond 
the  significance  given  to  these  data  in  the  course  of  any  present 
reflection,  yet  the  fact  of  experience  and  the  fact  of  reflection 
which  the  philosopher  finds  in  constructing  any  theory  what- 
ever about  any  object-matter  whatever  constitute  for  him 
the  most  immediate  and  the  most  certain  starting-points, 
though,  of  course,  only  relatively  certain  and  relatively 
immediate. 

Both  facts  have  not  only  a  formally  methodical,  but 
assume  also  a  particular  material  importance  if  we  remember 
that  modern  philosophy  must  be  a  philosophy  of  culture.  As 
long  as  the  world  remained  for  philosophy  a  world  of  pure 
ideas  independent  of  the  individual's  experience,  or  a  world  of 
pure  natural  reality  independent  of  reflection,  starting  with 
experience  or  reflection  was  merely  a  methodical  trick  used 
in  order  to  reach  something  entirely  different.  But  if  we 
realize  that  the  concrete  world  is  a  world  of  culture,  the 
situation  changes.  For  we  know  culture  only  as  human 
culture  and  we  can  think  of  it  only  with  reference  to  concrete 

24 


EXPERIENCE  AND  REFLECTION  2$ 

conscious  beings  which  experience  it ;  whatever  else  a  cultural 
object  may  be,  it  certainly  must  be  at  some  time  and  in  some 
connection  experienced  by  somebody,  and  thus  the  fact  of 
experience  has  a  universal  importance  with  regard  to  the 
cultural  world.  On  the  other  hand  also,  we  know  that  the 
world  of  culture  is  a  world  in  evolution,  and  that  cultural 
evolution  involves  active  thought;  and  in  so  far  as  it  does 
this — a  point  which  we  shall  determine  presently — reflection 
becomes  also  a  general  characteristic  not  only  of  philosophy, 
but  also  of  its  object-matter. 

If  the  starting-point  of  the  philosophy  of  culture  is  thus  | 
more  or  less  in  accordance  with  philosophical  tradition,  this  j  ^^ 
very  fact  should  keep  us  aware  of  the  dangers  of  our  beginning.  ' 
In  order  not  to  accept  unconsciously  premises  which  may 
vitiate  the  further  development  of  our  theory,  we  must  limit 
our  admissions,  both  with  regard  to  experience  and  with 
regard  to  reflection,  to  the  absolutely  necessary  minimum. 
With  regard  to  the  former,  we  cannot  accept  as  a  general  basis 
the  results  of  the  individual's  reflection  about  himself  as 
subject  opposed  to  objects,  because  the  "subject"  is  both  a 
form  of  experience,  when  we  consider  the  course  of  experience 
as  a  ''subjective"  activity,  and  a  matter  of  experience,  when 
we  take  him  into  account  as  a  personality  who  can  be  appre- 
hended by  himself  or  by  others  in  the  course  of  experience. 
In  the  first  character,  it  is  the  condition  of  all  experience;  in 
the  second,  it  is  conditioned  by  other  experiences.  The 
concept  of  the  subject  cannot  therefore  be  used  in  discussing 
the  problem  of  experience,  for  the  latter,  as  primary  problem, 
as  starting-point  of  philosophical  investigation,  should  not 
depend  on  the  previous  solution  of  other  problems;  and  the 
concept  of  the  subject,  since  it  has  to  be  qualified  either  as 
active  thought  of  which  the  matter  of  experience  is  the  object, 
or  as  an  object-matter  among  others,  presupposes  both  a 
theory  of  active  thought  and  a  theory  of  objects.  Further- 
more, in  studying  reflection  we  cannot  identify  it  with  theoretic 


26'  CULTURAL  REALITY 

thought,  for  the  concept  of  theoretic  thought  impHes  also  a 
duahsm.  On  the  one  hand,  indeed,  we  know  that  theoretic 
thought  has  for  object-matter  the  entire  world,  including  all 
types  of  human  activity;  on  the  other  hand,  it  is  itself  only 
one  of  the  types  of  activity  which  are  found  in  the  cultural 
world,  and  thus  becomes  its  own  object-matter.  In  its  first 
character  it  claims  an  absolute  validity  for  itself  in  reference 
to  its  object-matter;  in  its  second  character  it  has  to  deny 
to  itself  any  absolute  vahdity,  since  it  finds  its  theories 
changing,  multiform,  and  conflicting.  This  seeming  antinomy 
can  be  solved  only  on  the  ground  of  a  general  study  of  both 
the  systems  of  ideas,  the  "theories,"  as  products  of  cultural 
activity  given  alongside  other  products,  and  of  the  thought 
which  creates  these  systems,  alongside  other  t3^es  of  creative 
activity. 

Thus  the  chief  problem  in  the  determination  of  the  most 
general  characters  of  experience  is  to  find  a  characteristic 
which  would  be  indeed  the  most  general  possible,  would  not 
involve  a  priori  any  limitation  of  experience  to  some  particular 
object-matter  to  the  exclusion  of  others.  The  initial  definition 
of  experience  must  be,  in  a  word,  purely  formal;  and  in  this 
respect  it  is  clear  that  any  character  of  experience  found  in  our 
own  direct  reflection  about  the  course  of  experience,  experi- 
enced itself  in  a  retrogressive  or  progressive  act  of  attention, 
must  lack  the  necessary  generality,  being  itself,  in  this  act,  a 
matter  of  experience,  no  longer  a  pure  form,  and  in  so  far  given 
from  a  certain  standpoint,  the  definite  standpoint  which  we 
have  taken  in  performing  our  reflection.  The  most  various 
and  often  contradictory  theories  of  experience  have  been 
reached  by  this  method. 

On  the  other  hand,  we  evidently  cannot  avoid  basing  our- 
selves on  those  characters  of  the  course  of  experience  which 
are  themselves  empirically  given  in  the  course  of  reflection, 
for  our  determination  cannot  be  pure  invention,  but  must 
actually  apply  to  experience  if  it  is  to  be  used  in  philosophy 


EXPERIENCE  AND  REFLECTION  27 

of  culture.  Thus,  we  must  resort  here  to  a  special  method. 
We  must  find  the  most  general  of  those  forms  of  experience 
that  can  be  given  in  an  act  of  reflection,  and  then  try  to  reach 
beyond  them,  by  means  of  a  rational  construction,  the  primary 
ground  from  which  they  are  derived  and  which  cannot  itself 
be  given. 

Those  most  general  forms  of  experience  that  can  be  yet 
ascertained  empirically  will  be  found  if  we  ask  ourselves  what 
are  the  conditions  which,  on  reflection,  seem  to  be  necessary 
and  sufficient  to  have  an  object  given  in  experience.  We 
emphasize  the  point  to  have  an  object  given.  For  we  are  not 
investigating  here  consciousness,  that  is,  the  way  in  which  the 
concrete  individual  sees  "himself"  experiencing,  but  merely 
the  form  which  the  data  of  experience  assume  in  the  course  of 
experience;  our  problem  is  not  psychological,  but  phenomeno- 
logical. 

If  we  try  now  to  defijie  experience  in  the  most  general 
terms  which  yet  have  an  empirical  meaning,  we  must  say  that 
experience  is  the  presence  of  elements  of  a  plurality  now  and 
here. 

All  the  parts  of  this  definition,  which  is  evidently  still  a 
description,  are  indispensable;  that  is,  every  one  of  them 
indicates  a  condition  of  experience  which  applies  to  any  matter 
of  experience,  independently  of  its  intrinsic  diversity.  At  the 
same  time  there  are  no  other  indispensable  parts  of  an  empir- 
ical definition  of  experience ;  any  other  condition  of  experience 
which  may  be  added  can  apply  only  to  certain  data  to  the 
exclusion  of  others. 

By  saying  that  experience  is  the  presence  of  something  we 
imply  the  possibility  that  this  "something"  may  be  also 
absent,  non-present,  if  it  does  not  satisfy  the  other  conditions 
enumerated  above;  in  other  words,  we  assume  that  "being 
experienced"  is  not  a  priori  identical  with  "being,"  that  it 
may  be  a  determination  which  would  only  partly  or  occa- 
sionally belong  to  those   objects  about  which  we  think  as 


28  CULTURAL  REALITY 

being  experienced.  This  assumption  is  indispensable  for  the 
empirical  definition  of  experience,  because  with  regard  to  every 
matter  of  experience  we  empirically  assume  this  possibility  of 
its  not  being  experienced.  This  applies  to  every  matter,  but, 
of  course,  not  to  the  fact  of  experiencing.^  It  does  not 
involve  any  affirmation  as  to  the  nature  and  degree  of  modi- 
fication to  which  any  matter  of  experience  may  or  may  not  be 
subjected  by  being  experienced. 

Every  present  datum  of  experience  is  an  element  of  a 
plurality  whose  other  elements  are  not  present.  This  means 
{a)  that  the  whole  matter  of  experience  is  not  given  at  once, 
but  in  parts;  {h)  that  any  present  part  of  experience  is 
empirically  isolated  from  the  rest,  given  as  a  distinct  unit; 
{c)  that  every  such  unit  is  empirically  associated  with  other 
parts  of  experience  and  in  so  far  given  as  an  element  of  a 
plurality,  not  as  an  absolutely  isolated  entity. 

Our  first  affirmation  contradicts  the  theory  of  absolute 
experience,  according  to  which  it  is  the  essence  of  the  matter 
of  experience  to  be  experienced  and  therefore  the  whole  of  it 
must  be  present  at  once  and  always.  But  this  is  not,  of 
course,  an  empirical  theory,  since  we  can  never  ascertain 
empirically  that  the  whole  matter  of  experience  is  present  at 
once;  such  a  theory  can  be  only  a  rational  inference  from 
an  empirical  definition  of  experience.  Such  an  inference 
involves  one  of  two  groundless  assertions,  either  that  the 
essence  of  the  matter  of  experience  is  exhausted  in  its  being 
present,  or  that  there  is  an  absolute  subject,  timeless  and 
spaceless,  to  whom  the  matter  of  experience  is  always  given. 
The  first  assertion  is  groundless,  because  it  contradicts 
a  priori  the  assumption,  empirically  found  in  all  experience, 

'Thus,  for  example,  my  past  "feeling"  as  object  of  experience  (if  we 
suppose  that  there  really  are  such  objects)  can  exist  without  being  now  the 
datum  of  my  experience,  whereas  if  treated  as  merely  the  way  in  which  some 
other  object  is  given  to  me,  it  exists  only  as  long  as  this  other  object  is  given. 
Evidently,  we  do  not  touch  here  at  all  the  pseudo-problem  of  objects  existing 
without  ever  being  given  to  anyone. 


EXPERIENCE  AND  REFLECTION  29 

that  every  matter  of  experience  may  be  present  or  not.  As 
to  the  idea  of  the  absolute  subject,  historically  and  logically 
it  is  based  not  upon  an  investigation  of  experience  itself,  but 
upon  an  analysis  of  the  systems  of  human  knowledge  which, 
granted  certain  presuppositions,  leads  to  the  concept  of  a 
unique  reason,  manifesting  itself  in  the  many  individual 
minds.  We  cannot  accept  the  conclusions  of  this  analysis 
as  valid  beforehand,  and  still  less  permit  them  to  be  applied 
in  advance  to  the  problem  of  experience. 

In  saying  that  every  element  of  experience  is  a  distinct 
unit  we  are  in  disaccordance  with  the  conception  of  the  matter 
of  experience  as  a  primary  continuity,  out  of  which  only  our 
perceptive  or  rational  activity  cuts  distinct  elements.  We 
cannot  accept  this  theory  because  it  cannot  be  ascertained  in 
experience.  And  even  this  theory  is  obliged  to  admit  that  a 
certain  discontinuity  is  empirically  given;  it  can  only  put 
absolute  continuity  as  a  limit  of  a  certain  synthetic  process; 
but  the  question  is,  then,  whether  this  synthetic  process  is 
returning  to  a  primitive  imity  or  creating  a  new  unity,  and 
any  answer  to  this  question  must  be  entirely  arbitrary  at  this 
stage  of  investigation. 

For  an  analogous  reason  we  cannot  accept  the  contrary 
theory  that  the  matter  of  experience  is  primarily  given  as  an 
absolute  discontinuity  and  only  our  synthetic  activity  estab- 
lishes a  connection  between  the  disconnected  elements.  No 
element  is  ever  given  to  us  absolutely  isolated,  but  whenever 
we  try  to  grasp  it  in  itself,  we  find  that  we  take  it  already 
in  connection  with  other  elements.  Even  as  the  limit  of 
an  empirical  tendency,  an  absolute  dissociation  cannot  be 
admitted,  for  here  again  the  question  arises  whether  it  is  not 
our  reflective  act  itself  which  has  artificially  individualized 
the  given  element  more  than  it  was  individualized  when  first 
given.  In  general,  it  is  a  vain  effort  to  try  to  go  back  to  an 
unreflective,  pure  experience  by  the  way  of  experiencing, 
since  every  act  of  a  conscious  "becoming  aware"  of  the 


30  CULTURAL  REALITY 

process  of  experience  involves  already  reflection  and  thus 
modifies  the  original  nature  of  this  process. 

As  metaphysical,  non-empirical  theories  of  experience, 
both  the  theory  which  conceives  experience  as  primarily  a 
continuous  stream  and  that  which  treats  it  as  primarily  a  dis- 
continuous series  of  data  can  be  equally  well  accepted  with- 
out in  any  way  influencing  our  empirical  reconstruction,  for 
the  first  must  acknowledge  that  there  are  waves  upon  the 
surface  of  this  stream  and  that  we  see  always  this  surface  only 
with  the  waves,  while  the  second  must  agree  that  we  always 
find  before  us  associations  which  make  a  more  or  less 
continuous  chain  of  the  series  of  data. 

In  answer  to  another  possible  objection,  that  the  field  of 
individual  experience  contains  always  many  simultaneous 
data,  we  need  simply  to  point  out  that  this  is  a  psychological, 
not  a  phenomenological  problem,  and  to  repeat  that  we  are 
interested  here  not  in  the  way  in  which  the  concrete  individual 
sees  himself  experiencing,  but  in  the  conditions  under  which 
objects  come  to  be  experienced  by  the  concrete  individual. 
From  the  purely  formal  and  phenomenological  viewpoint,  the 
question  whether  for  the  individual  many  data  are  present 
at  once  has  no  more  importance  than  the  question  whether 
many  individuals  are  experiencing  something  at  once;  it  is 
merely  incidental.  In  order  that  the  process  of  experience 
may  go  on  it  is  sufficient  and  necessary  that  always  some 
matter,  however  simple  or  complicated,  be  present  and 
referring  to  other,  non-present  matters.  If  there  were  no 
single,  isolated  matters  present,  we  should  not  have  anything 
empirically  given ;  if  the  present  matter  did  not  refer  to  non- 
present  matters,  we  should  not  be  able  to  go  beyond  the 
present  datum. 

The  affirmation  that  experience  is  the  presence  of  some- 
thing now  will  probably  find  least  opposition.  The  temporal 
character  of  experience  can  hardly  be  denied,  and  we  postpone 
for  awhile  the  question  whether  it  is  due  to  the  temporal 


EXPERIENCE  AND  REFLECTION  3 1 

character  of  the  matter  of  experience,  or  of  the  experiencing 
subject,  or  perhaps  to  something  else.  In  any  case  the 
elements  of  the  plurality  of  experience  succeed  one  another 
in  the  sense  that  each  in  succession  is  "now  given."  The 
now  may  be  defined  from  the  standpoint  of  various  theories, 
as  a  passing  moment  of  the  absolute  time,  or  as  a  timeless 
present  through  which  the  course  of  time  goes  on,  or  as  the 
limit  of  the  past,  or  the  beginning  of  the  future,  or  as  still 
something  else.  Empirically  it  is  absolute,  not  relative  to 
any  other  moment;  it  is  an  ultimate  unanalyzable  form. 
Therefore,  with  any  definition  of  the  time  the  fact  holds 
true  that  the  element  given  now  is  one  definite  member 
of  a  successive  series,  is  passing  through  the  form  of 
now  after  some  element  and  before  some  other;  and  there- 
fore, as  a  general  empirical  form  of  experience,  duration, 
whatever  else  it  may  mean,  means  a  succession  of  ele- 
ments in  the  present;  these  elements  with  regard  to 
the  present  have  to  be  considered  as  arranged  in  a  one- 
dimensional  series,  externally  to  one  another,  and  still 
associated  with  one  another  so  as  to  make  the  series  con- 
tinuous. 

We  are  perfectly  aware  of  the  difficulty  which  such  a 
definition  presents  to  our  reason,  which  cannot  conceive 
externality  and  continuity  together.  But  both  are  universal 
components  of  the  form  of  experience  as  far  as  it  can  be 
ascertained  empirically,  and  we  can  reject  neither  of  them 
only  for  the  reason  that  they  seem  to  disagree  logically. 
This  disagreement  is  the  result  of  that  fundamental  difficulty 
of  the  problem  of  experience,  that  the  form  of  empirical  data 
must  be  turned  into  an  empirical  datum  itself  in  order  to 
be  determined;  when  we  succeed  in  overcoming  this  diffi- 
culty, the  irrationality  will  disappear.  Certainly  the  modern 
reduction  of  externaHty  to  continuity  and  interpenetration 
is  no  more  a  rational  solution  than  the  ancient  reduction 
of  continuity  to  externaHty. 


32  CULTURAL  REALITY 

Of  course,  we  can  only  repeat  here  what  we  have  said 
already  about  the  distinction  of  the  form  of  experience  and 
the  form  of  consciousness;  there  may  be  many  parallel  tem- 
poral series  running  in  the  individual  consciousness,  as  there 
may  be  many  data  present  at  once,  but  this  is  only  a  compli- 
cation of  the  elementary  form  of  experience  in  determined 
empirical  conditions. 

The  formal  temporal  character  of  experience  does  not 
involve  anything  concerning  the  matter  of  experience.  The 
temporality  which  we  define  is  extrinsic,  not  intrinsic;  the 
empirical  data  themselves  may  or  may  not  have  the  empirical 
feature  of  duration.  One  of  the  current  errors  of  empiricism 
is  to  assume  duration  as  belonging  to  the  matter  of  experience 
universally,  while  absolute  ideaUsm  tends  rather  to  ignore  or 
to  deny  the  time  as  empirical  datum.  Both  theories  lead  to 
one-sided  and  evidently  insufficient  theories  of  reality. 
Empiricism  is  unable  to  account  for  the  possibility  of 
experiencing  timeless  data,  such  as  mathematical  relations; 
idealism  is  finally  obliged  to  deny  the  objectivity  of  duration. 
Our  way  of  stating  the  problem  makes  a  future  admission  of 
temporal  data  of  experience  (for  example,  changes)  and  of 
untemporal  data  (for  example,  theories)  equally  possible, 
without  presuming  anything  beforehand. 

More  doubtful  than  the  imiversality  of  the  now  seems  at 
first  that  of  the  here,  particularly  as,  since  Kant,  so  much 
emphasis  has  been  put  upon  the  theory  that  extension  is  not  a 
universal  form  of  experience  like  duration,  but  characterizes 
only  the  "external"  experience.  But  we  must  again  dis- 
tinguish two  problems:  the  intrinsic  spatiality  of  data  of 
experience  and  the  extrinsic  extensiveness  of  experience. 
Spatial  extension  and  localization  may  be  included  within  the 
data  of  experience,  in  the  sense  that  single  objects  may  be 
spatially  extended  and  that  among  the  data  of  experience 
there  are  groups  of  objects  spatially  localized  with  regard  to 
one  another.    Of  course,  in  this  spatial  sense  extension  is 


EXPERIENCE  AND  REFLECTION  ^:^ 

not  a  universal  form,  only  a  matter  of  experience,  since  there 
are  data  of  experience  which  are  neither  spatially  extensive 
objects  nor  groups  of  objects  spatially  locahzed  with  regard 
to  one  another.  But  this  is  not  our  present  problem.  We 
omit  completely  the  question  of  an  intrinsic  spatiality  of  data 
of  experience  in  the  same  way  as  we  have  omitted  the  question 
of  their  intrinsic  temporaHty.  We  affirm  now  only  the  formal 
extrinsic  extensiveness  of  experience,  the  fact  that  any  datum 
whatever,  spatial  or  not,  whenever  it  is  given,  is  given  here. 
This  does  not  mean  that  data  of  experience  are  localized  here; 
if  localized  at  all,  they  are  so  in  some  place  determined  by 
their  relative  spatial  position  with  regard  to  other  objects 
within  a  certain  section  of  reality,  and  this  place  and  these 
other  objects  are  then  one  complex  datum  of  experience,  one 
spatially  arranged  group.  Nor  does  it  mean  that  some 
copies,  some  ''images"  of  objects  are  here  in  my  mind  or  here 
in  my  brain;  this  would  be  pure  nonsense.  The  here  is 
an  absolute  point  of  extension  in  the  same  way  as  the  now 
is  an  absolute  moment  of  duration.  The  empirical  here  as 
an  ultimate  form  of  experience  does  not  depend  upon  any 
definition  of  space  any  more  than  the  now  depends  upon  any 
definition  of  time;  nor  does  it  involve  any  localization  of  the 
body  of  the  experiencing  subject  with  regard  to  other  data,  nor 
even  the  representation  of  the  subject's  spatially  extended 
body.  On  the  contrary,  the  here  is  the  point  aroimd  which 
the  data  of  experience  are  centered,  and  thus  it  is  a  primary 
condition  of  any  extension  of  the  empirical  world.  But  it 
is  not  a  sufficient  condition  of  the  spatial  order,  for  only  those 
objects  are  taken  by  us  as  spatially  localized  with  regard  to 
the  here  which  are  spatially  localized  with  regard  to  the  par- 
ticular object  called  my  body,  and  of  course,  this  can  apply 
only  to  spatial  objects,  that  is,  to  those  with  regard  to  which 
spatiality  is  a  matter  of  experience. 

The  extension  implied  in  the  here  is  not  space  just  as 
the  duration  implied  in   the  now  is  not   time.     Both  are 


34  CULTURAL  REALITY 

only  the  last,  the  poorest,  the  most  elementary  forms  which 
can  yet  be  experienced.  The  pure  here  only  completes  the 
determination  of  experience  in  the  now  by  limiting  it. 
Even  the  now  of  an  element  of  experience  leaves  its  presence 
yet  incompletely  determined,  for  the  now  has  many  con- 
temporary here's,  many  elements  can  be  given  now  in  many 
different  here's.  On  the  other  hand,  of  course,  it  is  not 
enough  for  an  element  to  be  here,  for  the  here  has  many 
successive  now's,  and  many  different  elements  can  be  present 
in  the  same  here  at  different  now's.  The  question  could 
be  made  seemingly  clearer  by  recalling  that  the  indi- 
vidual's experience  is  limited  both  in  extension  and  in 
duration,  that  out  of  the  extensive  wealth  of  the  empirical 
world  at  a  given  moment  various  data  are  present  in  the 
experience  of  various  individuals,  and  that  in  the  experience 
of  the  same  individual  various  data  appear  at  various 
moments.  But  such  a  formulation  would  lead  us  to  problems 
which  at  this  stage  of  investigation  must  be  avoided,  for  it 
introduces  concepts  which  are  not  those  of  the  primary  form 
of  experience.  Empirically  it  is  the  individual  limitation  of 
experience  which  presupposes  the  intersection  of  duration  and 
extension,  and^not  reciprocally. 

ACTUALITY   FROM   THE   STANDPOINT   OF   THE   EMPIRICAL 
ANALYSIS    OF   EXPERIENCE 

Presence,  extrinsic  plurality,  succession  with  regard  to 
the  now,  and  concentration  with  regard  to  the  here  are  the 
most  formal  determinations  of  experience  that  can  be  drawn 
from  empirical  data  by  direct  analysis.  But,  as  we  have  said, 
they  are  still  empirically  given,  they  still  preserve  a  minimum 
of  "intuitiveness,"  and  in  so  far  have  some  of  the  character 
of  matter  of  experience.  They  are  not  given,  indeed,  as 
independent  elements  of  the  plurality  of  experience,  nor  as 
components  of  other  elements;  but,  when  we  reflect  about 
the  process  of  experience,  we  can  experience  them  as  external 


EXPERIENCE  AND  REFLECTION  35 

characteristics  of  every  datum  in  its  relation  to  other  data. 
Their  universality  distinguishes  them  positively  from  any 
datum  which  is  only  a  matter,  not  a  form  of  experience. 
This  universality  has  been  denied  to  each  of  them  separately 
by  some  philosophical  theories ;  every  one  of  them  separately 
has  been  treated  somewhere  as  a  mere  datum  of  experience, 
which  may  accompany  or  not  other  data  and  has  no  impor- 
tance beyond  that  of  being  given  within  the  realm  of  experi- 
ence. The  plurality  is  rejected  by  the  mystics;  the  succession 
in  duration  is  considered  illusory  and  explained  as  an  illusion 
by  absolute  idealism ;  the  concentration  in  extension  is  ignored 
by  subjective  idealism. 

The  possibility  of  denying  the  universality  of  any  one  of 
these  characters  of  experience  is,  of  course,  only  apparent; 
in  further  development  every  form  must  be  reintroduced  in 
some  way  or  other,  if  experience  is  to  be  accounted  for.  The 
difference  between  philosophical  theories  of  experience  lies 
mainly  in  the  metaphysical  presuppositions  from  which 
experience  is  deduced  and  in  the  manner  in  which  its  forms  are 
presented.  If  each  of  them  separately  has  ever  been  denied, 
it  is  because  they  are  the  result  of  the  analysis  of  a  more 
fundamental  and  general  ground  of  experience,  which  is  not 
empirically  manifested,  cannot  become  a  matter  of  experience, 
because  it  underlies  both  the  acts  of  reflection  about  experience 
and  the  process  which  is  the  object-matter  of  this  reflection. 
While  rejecting  singularity  or  plurality,  duration  or  extension, 
a  philosophical  theory  does  not  reject  the  really  primary 
ground  of  experience,  but  only  a  part  of  the  entire  product  of 
its  analysis.  Therefore  the  error  of  denying  one  of  these 
empirical  forms  does  not  lead  at  once  to  the  negation  of  expe- 
rience in  general,  but  only  to  an  incomplete  conception  of  it. 

We  call  actuality  the  primitive  ground  of  experience  which 
is  the  common  root  of  presence,  unity  and  plurality,  succession 
and  concentration.  We  use  the  term  "ground  of  experience" 
because  of  its  vagueness;   none  of  the  precise  philosophical 


36  CULTURAL  REALITY 

terms  could  express  adequately  the  role  which  actuality  plays 
with  regard  to  experience,  actuality  being  absolutely  unique, 
not  to  be  put  into  any  class  of  forms,  principles,  etc. 

Our  definition  of  it  must  be  clearly  a  genetic  one;  that  is, 
we  have  to  define  actuality  precisely  with  regard  to  those 
forms  which  arise  from  its  analysis.  They  cannot  be  con- 
tained in  actuality  as  fully  and  explicitly  as  we  find  them  when 
they  are  analytically  isolated  from  the  data  of  experience,  for 
then  actuality  would  be  nothing  but  a  simple  sum  of  these 
forms  and  empirically  ascertainable,  which  is  impossible.  But 
they  must  be  virtually  contained  in  actuality,  for  otherwise 
reflective  analysis  of  experience  could  not  have  found  them. 

In  order  to  pass  now  from  empirical  forms  to  the  pre- 
empirical  ground  of  experience,  we  must  know  the  effect  of 
this  reflective  analysis,  the  modifications  which  it  was  bound 
to  introduce  into  its  object-matter,  the  original  course  of 
experience,  in  order  to  change  it  into  data.  This  is  easy 
to  determine.  The  reflective  act  which  analyzes  the  course 
of  experience  is  an  act  of  isolation  and  objectivation;  it 
abstracts  single  aspects  of  the  entire  concrete  process  and 
stabilizes  them  as  definite  and  ready  forms.  In  thinking 
about  our  experience  we  necessarily  take  as  complete 
that  which  is  only  a  part  of  the  total  process,  as  achieved  that 
which  is  only  becoming;  we  substitute  the  limit  for  the 
tendency  and  the  result  for  the  act,  because  the  experiencing 
about  which  we  are  reflecting  is  no  longer  the  experiencing 
as  it  is  going  on.  Thus  the  conclusion  which  we  have 
reached  in  the  preceding  paragraph — that  the  empirical  forms 
of  experience  are  virtually  contained  in  the  pre-empirical 
groimd  of  experience — can  only  mean  that  when  not  reflected 
upon  these  forms  they  are  only  becoming,  not  achieved,  are 
tendencies,  not  limits,  acts,  not  results. 

When  we  say  therefore  that  the  presence  of  an  element  of 
a  plurality  which  the  act  of  reflection  finds  in  experience  is 
only  virtually  contained  in  the  primary  ground  of  experience. 


EXPERIENCE  AND  REFLECTION  37 

this  means  that  in  actuality  there  is  a  becoming  of  a  plurality. 
The  two  sides  of  the  extrinsic  plurality  of  experience  which 
we  have  treated  as  coexisting  statically  in  various  proportions, 
the  isolated  elements,  and  the  association  of  these  elements 
in  actuality  can  only  express  the  limits  of  two  tendencies,  one 
of  which  increases  the  isolation  and  the  other  of  which  develops 
the  association.  Actuality  is  not  a  presence  of  ready  elements 
of  a  ready  group,  but  a  formation  of  both  elements  and  group, 
a  process  of  isolation  of  elements  out  of  a  relative  continuity 
and  of  connection  of  elements  relatively  isolated.  When  we 
consider  the  static  results  of  this  process,  the  limits  of  both 
tendencies,  whatever  these  limits  may  be  for  any  matter 
in  particular  at  any  moment  of  reflection,  we  have  precisely 
a  present  element,  more  or  less  ready  in  its  isolation,  and  a 
non-present  plurality,  more  or  less  ready  in  its  association. 

Likewise,  in  the  temporal  succession  of  empirical  data 
passing  through  the  iiow  there  is  something  which  appears 
to  our  reflection  as  ready  and  accomplished,  that  is,  the 
definite  direction  in  timie  and  of  time.  Only  in  so  far  as  such 
a  direction  is  attained,  can  we  consider  a  present  element 
given  before  some  and  after  other  elements.  This  definite 
direction  is  one  from  the  past  through  the  present  into  the 
future,  if  we  view  it  from  the  standpoint  of  pure  time;  it  is 
one  from  the  future  through  the  present  into  the  past,  if  we 
take  it  from  the  point  of  view  of  the  data  which  pass  through 
the  now.  But  both  of  its  aspects  can  be  only  virtually  con- 
tained in  actuality.  Actuality  has  in  itself  the  fundamental 
condition  of  the  directed  succession,  the  condition  that  is 
common  to  both  of  its  aspects  and  that  is  necessary  both  for 
the  direction  of  the  time  and  for  the  direction  of  the  data  in 
time:  it  has  the  becoming.  In  this  becoming  of  actuality 
the  definite  direction  of  the  time-succession  is  not  ready;  it 
only  develops. 

We  must  understand  that  without  this  principle  of  becom- 
ing there  would  be  no  directed  succession  of  data.     The  data 


38  CULTURAL  REALITY 

themselves  as  passing  through  the  now  would  be  evidently 
unable  to  produce  direction,  since  their  passage  does  not 
preclude  the  possibility  for  a  past  datum  to  become  future 
once  more.  This  essential  point  has  been  too  much  neglected. 
If  we  leave  aside  a  pre-existing  order  of  things  and  ideas  and 
limit  ourselves  to  the  conception  of  experience  as  a  plurahty 
of  data  passing  separately  through  the  present,  directed  suc- 
cession is  a  difficult  problem.  A  datum  is  past  from  the 
standpoint  of  the  present  if  it  was  experienced;  it  is  future 
from  the  standpoint  of  the  present  if  it  will  be  experienced. 
And  since  there  are  a  multitude  of  data  which  return  in  the 
present  more  than  once,  they  are  by  themselves  either  past  or 
future,  indifferently — past  in  so  far  as  they  already  were 
experienced,  future  in  so  far  as  they  will  be  experienced. 
There  is  no  datum  of  experience  of  which  we  could  say 
a  priori  that  it  cannot  return;  it  does  not  matter  from  the 
standpoint  of  pure  experience  whether  we  qualify  this  datum 
ontologically  as  an  image  or  a  thing.  Thus  neither  a  direc- 
tion in  time  nor  a  direction  of  time  can  be  deduced  from  the 
data  as  passing  through  the  now. 

There  must  be  therefore  in  the  course  of  experience  some 
factor  which  makes  an  irreversible  series  of  data  in  spite  of  the 
fact  that  each  of  these  data  can  reappear  an  indefinite  num- 
ber of  times  in  the  series.  This  factor  must  be  inherent  in 
the  primary  ground  of  experience,  not  be  produced  by  reflec- 
tion alone.  Actuality  must  be  a  becoming  in  which  the 
definite  direction  in  time  and  of  time  itself  becomes;  this 
direction  is  not  pre-existent  to  the  course  of  experience,  but 
is  gradually  created  in  it.  And  as  without  a  definite  direction 
there  is  no  time  in  the  traditional  sense  of  the  term,  from  the 
standpoint  of  experience  tune  is  never  ready;  it  is  continu- 
ally empirically  created.  We  shall  see  later  that  from  the 
standpoint  of  the  objective  world  time  also  preserves  this 
incomplete  and  dynamic  character,  that  it  is  not  primary  and 
independent,  but  derived  and  gradually,  indefinitely  produced. 


EXPERIENCE  AND  REFLECTION  39 

Only  our  reflection  which  generahzes  the  indefinite  progress 
of  actuaHty  raises  thereby  the  indefinitely  progressing  creation 
of  time  to  the  absolute,  carries  the  continuous  tendency  to  its 
ideal  limit,  and  accepts  this  limit  as  if  it  were  real. 

The  extensive  concentration  of  experience  around  the  here 
exists  virtually  in  actuality  in  the  same  sense  as  the  preceding 
forms;  it  becomes  actually,  but  is  never  stabilized  and  ready. 
We  can  distinguish  here  also  two  sides  of  the  question.  The 
data  are  concentrated  around  the  here^  but  at  the  same  time 
they  are  independent  in  some  measure  of  the  here,  they  are 
in  themselves;  not  all  the  matter  of  experience  present  now 
is  also  present  here.  The  becoming  of  actuality  is  con- 
centrating them  and  at  the  same  time  limiting  their  con- 
centration; it  refers  various  elements  to  a  common  center, 
but  at  the  same  time  eliminates  others  which  formerly  were 
concentrated,  moves  them  away  from  this  center.  The 
entire  matter  of  experience,  or  any  part  of  it,  is  never  effect- 
ively centered  here  and  never  fully  independent  from  a 
reference  to  the  here;  only  partly  and  gradually  it  concentrates 
itself  in  the  actual  becoming,  and  in  the  same  course  of 
experience  it  becomes  partly  and  gradually  diffused.  If  I 
suppose  the  complex  result  of  the  indefinitely  progressing 
actuality  definitely  achieved,  I  reach  the  conception  of  some 
elements  of  the  total  plurality  of  experience  constituting  my 
experience,  of  other  elements  being  outside  of  my  experience, 
or  of  a  certain  side  of  all  experience  being  mine,  other  sides 
remaining  not  mine.  But  the  concept  of  an  individual  part 
or  side  of  experience  determined  for  any  moment  of  time  marks 
again  only  the  Ideal  limit  of  a  tendency  that  can  never  attain 
any  limit.  The  world  as  experienced  is  neither  concentrated 
around  me  nor  self-existing  independently  of  me;  it  becomes 
simultaneously  both,  datum  by  datum,  moment  by  moment, 
in  an  indefinite  dynamic  development. 

Actuality  can  be  thus  reconstructed  from  the  standpoint 
of  the  empirical  forms  reflectively  foimd  in  experience,  as  a 


40  CULTURAL  REALITY 

continuous,  simultaneous,  and  parallel  suhjectivation  and 
objectivation  of  the  elements  of  experience.  In  so  far  as  an 
element  of  experience  becomes  present  and  refers  to  a  non- 
present  plurality,  in  so  far  as  it  becomes  past  and  refers  to  the 
future,  in  so  far  as  it  is  brought  here  and  refers  to  others  as 
being  there,  it  acquires  a  subjective  character;  in  so  far,  on 
the  contrary,  as  it  becomes  the  element  of  a  non-present 
plurality,  as  it  becomes  the  future  datum  referred  to  from 
the  past  through  the  now,  as  it  becomes  there  while  others 
become  here,  it  acquires  the  features  of  objectivity.  This 
is  only  a  becoming,  relative  and  varying;  no  element  of 
experience  ever  is  subjective  or  objective,  and  every  element  of 
experience  can  pass  from  the  tendency  toward  subjectivity  to 
a  tendency  toward  objectivity  and  vice  versa.  For  subjectiv- 
ity and  objectivity  are  not  ready  forms  of  experience ;  we  do 
not  find  them  directly  in  our  reflection.  They  become  them- 
selves, together  and  in  reference  to  each  other,  in  the  concrete 
pre-reflective  course  of  actuality  in  which  they  are  both  unified 
dynamically.  Unprejudiced  observation  of  experience  can- 
not detect  them  as  achieved  and  opposed  to  each  other.  If 
they  were  isolated  and  made  static  and  definite  by  philosophy, 
it  was  because  philosophy  did  not  take  the  unprejudiced 
standpoint  of  simple  observation  of  experience,  but  tried  to 
make  experience  fit  into  the  ready  mold  of  the  ancient 
ontological  dualism  of  soul  and  body. 

ACTUALITY  FROM  THE   STANDPOINT   OF   THE   ACT   OF 
REFLECTION 

The  definition  of  actuality  which  we  have  reached  is  still 
incomplete,  since  it  is  only  valid  from  the  standpoint  of  the 
results  of  reflection  about  the  process  of  experience;  though 
it  goes  beyond  the  immediate  product  of  this  reflection  and 
reconstructs  the  original  ground  of  experience,  it  reconstructs 
it  with  reference  to  these  secondary,  empirical  forms  which 
the  act  of  reflection  draws   from  it.    Therefore  we  must 


EXPERIENCE  AND  REFLECTION  4 1 

supplement  our  definition  by  trying  to  reconstruct  actuality 
from  the  second  possible  standpoint.  We  must  now  remember 
that  our  act  of  reflection  itself  is  going  on  in  actuality,  like 
all  acts  of  reflection  ever  performed,  and  we  must  therefore 
reconstruct  actuality  no  longer  as  object,  but  as  source  of 
reflection,  as  the  ground  upon  which  any  reflection,  including 
the  reflection  about  actuality  itself,  originates. 

Every  reflection  implies  a  fundamental  distinction  without 
which  it  would  be  impossible — the  well-known  distinction 
of  thought  and  reality.  This  distinction  is  not  limited  to 
theoretic  reflection;  it  characterizes  every  conscious  activity 
of  whatever  kind.  In  so  far,  now,  as  every  conscious  act  is 
actual,  actuality  must  be  the  ground  upon  which,  for  the 
experiencing  individual,  the  distinction  between  thought  and 
reaUty  arises,  just  as  it  is  the  ground  upon  which  the  distinc- 
tion of  subjectivity  and  objectivity  arose. 

In  order  to  demonstrate  these  propositions  with  all  the 
relative  certainty  which  they  can  possess  at  the  present  stage 
of  our  investigation,  we  must  point  out,  first  of  all,  that  the 
distinction  of  thought  and  reality  is  not  at  all  implied  in  the 
empirical  forms  of  experience  as  outlined  above,  and  not 
even  in  the  distinction  of  subjectivity  and  objectivity,  whose 
becoming  has  been  found  the  ultimate  and  most  general 
characteristic  of  actuality  as  reflected  upon.  Relatively 
subjective  data,  and  even  the  pure  form  of  subjectivity — the 
ideal  limit  of  the  subjectivation  of  all  data — can  be  a  reality 
given  to  thought  in  the  same  way  as  the  relatively  objective 
data  and  the  form  of  objectivity.  On  the  other  hand, 
thoughts  and  realities  alike  can  become  both  subjectivated  or 
objectivated.  When  viewed  as  mere  data,  the  elements  of 
experience  are  neither  thoughts  nor  realities,  though  they  can 
become  more  or  less  subjective  or  objective.  Therefore  from 
the  standpoint  of  the  results  of  a  reflection  about  experience 
it  is  impossible  to  understand  how  any  rational  or  logical 
systems  can  arise  in  the  course  of  individual  experience,  how 


42  CULTURAL  REALITY 

there  can  be  any  meaning,  any  systematization,  any  stand- 
ards of  validity  where  observation  shows  us  nothing  but 
an  associative  organization  of  data.  On  the  other  hand, 
when  we  look  upon  the  empirical  world  as  upon  a  world  of 
thoughts  and  realities,  we  find  neither  subjectivity  nor 
objectivity  and  it  is  impossible  to  understand  from  this 
standpoint  how  there  can  appear  within  this  world  a  partial 
organization  of  realities  and  thoughts  as  data  and  associations 
of  data  with  regard  to  indefinitely  becoming  individual  centers 
of  presence,  duration  and  extension,  how  there  can  be  any 
subjectivity  or  objectivity.  The  assumption  of  an  ontological 
subject,  at  the  same  time  receptacle  of  data  and  author  of 
thought,  permitted  philosophy  for  a  long  time  to  close  its 
eyes  to  these  problems,  but  they  reappear  at  every  step  in  the 
chaotic  relations  between  subjectivism  and  objectivism  on  the 
one  side,  idealism  and  realism  on  the  other. 

It  is  clear  that,  if  actuality  is  the  source  of  the  distinction 
between  thought  and  reality,  this  gives  it  a  completely  new 
character,  not  included  in  the  characters  discussed  in  the 
preceding  section.  The  act  of  reflection  about  the  course 
of  experience  is  indeed,  in  a  sense,  going  on  in  the  course  of 
experience  and  can  be  viewed  as  an  association  of  data  con- 
tinuing the  very  series  about  which  it  reflects;  but  it  is  also 
something  entirely  different.  It  is  a  conscious  activity  of 
which  the  course  of  experience  analyzed  by  it  is  the  passive 
material.  These,  the  consciously  active  character  of  thought 
and  the  passive  character  of  reality  as  material  of  thought, 
are  evidently  new  and  independent  features  of  the  con- 
crete development  of  actuality;  they  could  not  have  sud- 
denly appeared  out  of  the  associative  organization  of  data 
which  implies  no  distinction  of  passivity  and  activity  and  is 
not  conscious  of  itself.  The  act  of  reflection  about  experience, 
as  act,  must  be  a  continuation  of  other  acts,  even  though  as 
association  of  data  it  is  also  a  continuation  of  the  preceding 
series  of  data.    With  regard  to  its  present  performance  it  roots 


EXPERIENCE  AND  REFLECTION  43 

in  the  course  of  experience,  but  with  regard  to  its  significance 
it  transcends  experience  immeasurably.  Its  object-matter  is, 
as  we  know,  a  reality  which  is  a  part  of  an  objective,  real  world, 
and  as  active  thought  this  act  has  a  logical  form  by  which  it 
participates  in  some  objective  ideal  order  of  the  cultural 
systems  of  science  or  art,  morality  or  religion,  etc.  Therefore 
its  results  lead  us  at  once  beyond  all  limitation  of  individual 
experience  and  reflection,  into  the  entire  development  of 
culture,  for  they  can  be  understood  only  as  parts  of  a  super- 
individual,  trans-actual  world. 

Of  course,  even  reflectively  analyzed  experience  cannot 
be  limited  to  "individual  consciousness."  We  have  seen 
that  it  involves  a  plurality  of  elements  in  duration  and 
extension  without  any  positive,  determinable  limits.  But 
this  lack  of  limits  is  purely  negative;  there  is  no  positive 
transcendence  of  experience  in  the  course  of  experience  as 
reflectively  viewed,  and  the  subjectivity  and  objectivity  of 
data  is  not  only  always  becoming,  never  ready,  but  is  rela- 
tive, belongs  to  these  data  only  with  regard  to  each  other. 
Therefore  no  conception  of  the  world  whatever  can  be  deduced 
from  the  reflective  analysis  of  experience.  If  there  is  a  world 
transcending  any  experiencing  individual  and  yet  common  to 
all  of  them  and  experienced  by  all  of  them,  it  is  because  every 
individual  is  not  only  a  center  toward  which  data  of  experience 
converge  from  the  trans-actual,  common  world,  but  a  center 
from  which  trans-actual  thoughts  and  realities  radiate  to  the 
common  world.  By  the  organization  of  data  in  the  course  of 
experience  the  super-individual  world  becomes  empirically 
given;  by  the  opposition  of  thought  and  reality  the  empiri- 
cally given  world  becomes  super-individual.  And  while, 
viewed  from  the  standpoint  of  experience,  the  most  common 
characteristic  of  the  concrete  world  of  culture  is  that  all  that 
it  contains  can  be  given  in  the  course  of  individual  experi- 
ence, from  the  standpoint  of  reflection  its  most  common 
characteristic  is   that   all  that  it  contains  is  either  a  real 


44  CULTURAL  REALITY 

object-matter  of  active  thought  or  a  valid  thought  acting 
upon  reahty. 

By  "reality"  we  mean  here  anything  that  is  the  passive 
object-matter  of  active  thought,  natural  objects  and  happen- 
ings, social  institutions,  language,  products  of  art,  rehgious 
myths,  etc.,  and  even  thoughts  themselves  when  they  be- 
come the  object-matter  of  other  thoughts.  By  "thought" 
we  mean  any  conscious  activity  which  handles  these  real 
materials,  isolates  them,  and  connects,  modifies,  and  organizes. 
Not  only  theoretic  reflection,  but  also  moral,  aesthetic,  reli- 
gious, social,  technical,  hedonistic,  activities  are  thoughts  by 
the  active  and  conscious  organization  of  given  materials  which 
they  produce.  Whenever,  in  whatever  field,  actuality  leads 
to  a  trans-actual  result,  which  thus  becomes  incorporated  into 
the  super-individual  world,  whenever  we  have  not  a  mere, 
more  or  less  subjective  or  objective,  datum  or  association  of 
data,  but  an  ideal  significance  or  a  real  object  of  this  sig- 
nificance, we  must  assume  a  distinction  between  thought  and 
reality  of  the  same  fundamental  character  as  the  one  which 
has  been  usually  ascribed  only  to  theoretic  reflection  and  its 
object-matter.  And  we  find  trans-actual  significances  and 
real  objects  of  these  significances,  whenever  there  are  any 
criteria,  any  standards,  for  the  existence  of  a  standard  shows 
that  we  are  beyond  the  simple  organization  of  data,  that  there 
is  an  opposition  of  thought  and  its  object-matter  and  a  trans- 
actual  standpoint  taken  with  regard  to  the  validity  of  thought 
and  the  reality  of  its  object-matter.  Since  all  cultural 
activities  involve  standards,  every  cultural  activity  implies 
an  opposition  of  thought  and  reality.  If  we  use  the  term 
"logic"  to  indicate  not  exclusively  the  Aristotelian  logic  of 
knowledge,  but  every  system  of  standards  which  thought 
must  follow  in  order  to  reach  an  ideal  validity  and  an  objective 
reality,  we  can  say  that,  in  the  same  way  as  the  existence  of 
theoretically  valid  theories  demands  that  our  knowledge  be 
not  a  mere  process  of  association  of  data  but  have  a  logical 


EXPERIENCE  AND  REFLECTION  45 

bearing,  the  existence  of  an  aesthetically  valid  art  demands  an 
aesthetic  activity  following  the  specific  ideal  standards  of  a 
logic  of  artistic  production  and  contemplation,  the  existence 
of  morally  valid  moralities  demands  a  moral  activity  which 
follows  the  criteria  of  a  particular  logic  of  moral  creation; 
even  the  existence  of  technique,  language,  or  political  organiza- 
tion cannot  be  explained  by  a  dynamic  organization  of  data, 
but  require  specifically  standardized  thoughts,  and  to  these 
thoughts  must  correspond  a  reality  which  is  rational  precisely 
in  so  far  as  it  is  the  proper  material  of  logical  thoughts, 
however  imperfect  and  however  different  its  rationality  in 
different  fields  may  be. 

The  pecuHarities  of  the  past  development  of  philosophy 
resulted  in  the  fact  that,  whereas  it  is  almost  universally 
recognized  that  the  organization  of  data  in  the  course  of 
experience  is  a  necessary  condition  of  anything's  existing 
for  us,  there  is  no  general  recognition  of  the  opposition  of 
thought  and  reality  as  a  necessary  condition  of  there  being 
any  self-existing  world  at  all.  On  the  one  hand,  indeed,  the 
rationalists,  who  were  inclined  to  recognize  this  opposition, 
treated  thought  as  subjective  and,  reducing  reality  to  data, 
absorbed  reality  in  the  subject;  on  the  other  hand  the  empiri- 
cists, treating  reality  as  objective  and  unable  to  deduce 
rational  thought  from  the  association  of  data,  absorbed 
thought  in  the  object.  After  having  emphasized  the  essential 
difference  between  subjectivity  and  objectivity  as  becoming 
in  the  course  of  experience  reflectively  considered,  and  thought 
and  reality  as  implication  of  reflection  itself,  we  must  now 
emphasize  as  against  both  rationalists  and  empiricists  the 
impossibility  of  there  being  in  the  empirical  world  thought 
without  reaUty  or  reality  without  thought. 

There  can  be  no  thought  without  reaHty,  for  this  would  be 
possible  only  if  thoughts  were  inherent  in  the  subject  and 
defined  as  subjective  processes.  As  they  are  not,  as  thought 
is  characterized  in  its  very  essence  not  by  its  psychological 


46  CULTURAL  REALITY 

occurrence,  but  by  its  logical  bearing,  it  is  clearly  correlative 
to  some  reality  with  regard  to  which  it  is  logically  valid, 
which  is  its  material.  It  must  be  recalled  once  more  that 
reahty,  for  philosophy  of  culture,  does  not  mean  merely 
material  or  even  psychological  reahty,  but  includes  all  cultural 
products  whatever,  among  others  even  ideas,  i.e.,  thoughts 
which  have  become  the  object-matter  of  other  thoughts. 
Nor  can  we  accept  the  common  contention  of  naturalistic 
empiricism  that  there  are  realities  without  thoughts  cor- 
responding to  them.  If  reality  were  identified  with 
objectivity,  with  existence  independent  of  actual  subjective 
associations,  this  contention  would  be,  of  course,  perfectly 
justified,  at  least  as  marking  a  limit.  But  reahty  is  char- 
acterized as  such  not  by  its  reference  to  the  subject,  but  by  its 
reference  to  thought,  as  object-matter  of  thought,  and  it 
would  be  evidently  self-contradictory  to  point  out  any  reality 
as  not  being  the  object-matter  of  thought,  for  it  would  be  an 
object-matter  at  least  of  this  very  thought  in  which  we  have 
denied  its  connection  with  thought.  And  of  all  realities  none 
shows  as  distinctly  the  influence  of  logical  thought  as  the 
reality  of  naturalism,  the  rational  product  of  a  long  and  com- 
plex development  of  scientific  theories.  Of  course,  to  give  our 
proposition  its  full  concrete  application  we  must  recall  again 
that  logical  thought  is  not  only  theoretic  thought,  but  all 
kinds  of  conscious  activity,  and  from  the  fact  that  any  con- 
crete reality  within  the  empirical  world  seems  never  to  have 
been  the  object-matter  of  theoretic  reflection  it  does  not  result 
that  it  has  not  been  the  object-matter  of  some  thought. 

The  opposition  of  thought  and  reality  is  evidently  not 
enough  to  make  thought  in  any  particular  way  logical,  reality 
in  any  particular  way  rational.  It  is  simply  the  most  elemen- 
tary and  universal  condition  of  all  standardized  activity  of 
whatever  kind,  all  standards  being  either  standards  of  thought 
as  applied  to  reality  or  standards  of  reality  as  object-matter  of 
thought.     What  will  be  the  specific  standards  apphed  depends 


EXPERIENCE  AND  REFLECTION  47 

on  the  systematic  organization  of  thought  and  reality;  but 
no  specific  standards  can  be  applied  otherwise  than  on  the 
ground  of  this  opposition. 

Therefore  this  opposition  must  be  assumed  as  univer- 
sally characterizing  individual  reflection,  just  as  the  pres- 
ence of  elements  of  a  plurality  now  and  here  characterizes 
universally  individual  experience.  Without  the  latter  nothing 
could  be  given ;  without  the  former  that  which  is  given  would 
never  transcend  individual  experience;  individual  reflection 
would  never  rise  to  a  super-individual  trans-actual  world. 

Having  thus  defined  actuality  on  its  active  side,  as 
course  of  reflection,  by  the  opposition  of  thought  and  reality, 
we  meet  now  an  analogous  problem  to  the  one  we  met  before, 
when  trying  to  define  the  fundamental  form  of  experience  on 
its  passive  side,  as  object-matter  of  reflection.  Indeed,  the 
distinction  of  thought  and  reality  cannot  ultimately  character- 
ize pure  actuality,  because  we  have  reached  it  by  considering 
the  developed  results  of  actual  reflection  as  they  appear  in 
logically  organized  thoughts  and  rationally  organized  realities. 
The  opposition  between  thought  and  reality  is  completed 
only  when  thought  is  already  connected  with  other  thoughts, 
reahty  with  other  realities,  and  it  is  only  in  these  connections 
that  we  can  reach  them  as  ready  and  opposed.  Meanwhile,  a 
thought  when  first  arising  in  the  course  of  individual  reflection 
is  not  yet  incorporated  into  a  logical  system,  its  object-matter 
is  not  yet  for  the  reflecting  individual  a  part  of  a  wider  reality, 
and  their  opposition  is  not  complete.  There  could  be  indeed 
no  thought  and  no  reality  within  the  world  as  given  to  us, 
there  could  be  no  trans-actual  and  yet  empirical  world  at  all 
if  actuality  did  not  contain  the  opposition  virtually;  the 
opposition  must  have  in  actuality  its  ultimate  source,  for  if 
the  world  is  a  world  of  culture,  a  human  world,  all  systems  of 
thought  and  reahty,  however  highly  rational  and  objective, 
must  be  constructed  or  reconstructed  from  human  actuahty. 
But  actuality  cannot  contain  the  opposition  in  a  definite 


48  CULTURAL  REALITY 

form,  for  precisely  by  producing  it,  it  leads  beyond  itself,  to 
the  trans-actual  world.  The  only  possible  conclusion  is  that 
actuality  is  the  becoming  of  both  thought  and  reality  in  their 
reciprocal  determination. 

SYNTHESIS   OF   THE   TWO   DEFINITIONS    OF 
ACTUALITY 

We  have  constructed  our  two  definitions  of  actuality  from 
two  standpoints  which  usually  have  been  considered  irre- 
concilable: the  standpoint  of  the  epistemological  evidence, 
based  on  the  ground  that  anything  that  is  given  in  any  char- 
acter whatever  must  be  experienced  as  a  datum,  and  that  of 
the  logical  evidence,  based  on  the  ground  that  any  theory  or 
any  criticism  of  a  theory  must  presume  the  logical  validity  of 
thought  and  the — at  least  relative — rationality  of  its  object- 
matter.  We  have  found  that  these  two  standpoints  in  their 
traditional  form  were  not  exactly  equivalent.  That  of  the 
epistemological  evidence  was  really  much  broader,  for  it  could 
be  extended  over  the  entire  empirical  world  and  did  not 
include  any  limitation  as  to  the  nature  of  data,  whereas  the 
standpoint  of  logical  evidence — for  reasons  which  it  would 
take  too  long  to  expose — was  usually  limited  to  a  portion  of 
the  entire  domain  of  validity,  to  the  field  of  theoretic  logic. 
Having  once  removed  this  unjustified  limitation,  we  find  the 
two  standpoints  exactly  counterbalancing  each  other,  equally 
one-sided,  and  incommensurable  with  each  other,  if  taken  as 
ultimate.  Meanwhile,  they  evidently  must  be  unified; 
actuality  in  its  concrete  development  does  not  show  this 
duality  of  standpoints.  Both  the  organization  of  data  in 
experience  and  the  opposition  of  thought  and  reality  have  a 
common  ultimate  ground.  This  community  is  compre- 
hensible when  we  remember  that  neither  the  organization  of 
data  with  regard  to  their  relative  subjectivity  and  objectivity, 
nor  the  opposition  of  thought  and  reaUty  are  ready  and 
achieved,  but  both  only  become  in  actuahty,  and  that  the 


EXPERIENCE  AND  REFLECTION  49 

latter  must  be  therefore  conceived  as  a  common  becoming  of 
both,  not  as  a  common  existence  of  both. 

The  development  of  the  individual's  experience  and  reflec- 
tion is,  indeed,  not  isolated  from  the  empirical  trans-actual 
world  of  thoughts  and  realities,  but  goes  on  within  this  very- 
world,  is  an  integral  part  of  it.  If  we  imagine  *  *  consciousness ' ' 
as  a  closed  receptacle  or  even  only  a  closed  series  of  specific 
phenomena,  then,  everything  in  this  receptacle  or  series  is  a 
datum  or  empirical  association  of  data  in  the  full  and  exclusive 
sense  of  these  terms  from  the  very  moment  it  enters  into 
consciousness;  everything  outside  of  this  receptacle  or  series 
is  a  reaUty  or  a  logical  thought,  and  there  is  no  possible  bridge 
between  them.  But  actual  experiencing  is  not  a  ready  series, 
only  an  ever-becoming  series,  not  a  ready  consciousness  but 
an  indefinitely  created  consciousness  of  which  every  datum 
and  every  association  is  at  the  same  time  in  some  measure  a 
reality  or  thought,  part  of  the  trans-actual  world  of  systems 
of  reahty  and  systems  of  thought,  because  it  never  exclusively 
is  but  always  only  becomes  a  datum  or  a  connection  of  data. 
The  process  of  subjectivation  by  which  the  subjective  series 
is  continually  created  without  ever  being  achieved  as  sub- 
jective, is  thus  not  simply  making  subjective  data  out  of 
objective  data,  but  making  subjective  data  and  subjective 
associations  out  of  something  that  was  not  data  nor  associa- 
tions of  data,  that  was  realities  or  logical  thoughts.  A  reahty 
or  a  thought  becomes  subjective  and  becomes  a  datum  of 
experience  or  an  association  at  the  same  time,  but  it  is  never 
entirely  subjective,  never  entirely  ceases  to  be  reality  or 
logical  thought.  Experiencing  as  process  of  subjectivation 
is  thus  turning  pre-existing  realities  into  data,  thoughts  into 
associations,  without  ever  reaching  the  limit  of  pure  subjec- 
tivity and  without  ever  destroying  entirely  the  logical  character 
of  the  thought  or  the  rational  character  of  the  reality,  which 
thus  becomes  given  by  becoming  subjective  and  becomes 
subjective  by  becoming  given. 


50  CULTURAL  REALITY 

On  the  other  hand,  the  world  of  thoughts  and  realities  is 
not  a  pure  absolute  system  or  systems,  absolutely  self-existing 
and  developing  absolutely  independently  of  the  individual's 
experience.  The  interrelation  between  the  experiencing 
individual  and  the  world  is  double.  The  individual  not  only 
turns  realities  into  data  and  thoughts  into  associative  pro- 
cesses, but  turns  his  data  and  associations  into  realities  and 
thoughts.  The  process  of  objectivation,  going,  as  we  have 
seen,  along  with  subjectivation  in  experience,  is  not  merely, 
as  it  seemed  to  us  from  the  standpoint  of  pure  experience, 
giving  objectivity  to  data  and  associations  which  were  sub- 
jective, but  changing  data  and  associations  into  realities  and 
thoughts,  giving  them  a  rational  order  and  a  logical  sig- 
nificance. The  limit  here  also  is  never  attained;  the  reahties 
and  thoughts  of  which  actuahty  is  the  source  never  entirely 
cease  to  be  data  and  associations,  and  as  far  as  they  still 
remain  data  and  associations,  never  can  become  absolutely 
objective  with  no  subjectivity  attached  to  them.  But  the 
limit  can  be  indefinitely  approached,  thought  can  become 
indefinitely  more  and  more  logical,  reality  more  and  more 
rational,  while  becoming  more  and  more  objective. 

Actuality  is  thus  a  dynamic  center  toward  which  in  a 
process  of  subjectivation  reahties  and  thoughts  converge  by 
becoming  data  and  associations  of  data  and  from  which  in  a 
process  of  objectivation  reahties  and  thoughts  radiate  by 
ceasing  to  be  data  and  by  becoming  rational  and  logical. 

ACTUALITY   AND   PERSONALITY 

This  definition  of  actuality  makes  us  understand  the 
double  relation  between  the  individual  and  the  world  of 
objective  reality  and  objective  thought.  On  the  one  hand, 
indeed,  we  see  how  the  individual  at  every  step  assimilates, 
so  to  speak,  pre-existing  objects  and  thoughts,  changes  them 
into  personal  experiences  by  taking  them  out  of  the  systematic 
rational  or  logical  order  of  which  they  are  elements,  and 


EXPERIENCE  AND  REFLECTION  51 

incorporating  them  into  the  subjective  series  of  his  data,  but 
without  ever  entirely  destroying  their  rational  or  logical 
character,  so  that  even  as  components  of  his  personality  they 
remain  in  some  varying  measure  trans-actual  and  super- 
individual,  and  his  personality,  as  gradually  realizing  itself 
in  the  complex  series  of  data,  always  is  somewhere  between 
subjectivity  and  objectivity,  partly  existing  within  the 
objective  world  itself,  partly  organized  into  a  unique  develop- 
ment of  experiences.  This  is  the  experiencing  individual  as 
receptive  personality  and  this  is  the  side  which  was  chiefly,  if 
not  exclusively,  treated  in  all  theories  which  presumed  the 
world  to  be  an  absolute  system  of  reality  or  an  absolute  system 
of  thought,  existing  and  developing  without  any  active 
participation  of  conscious  individuals,  whose  only  role  was  to 
be  adequately  receptive.  But  there  is  another  side,  indis- 
pensable to  the  explanation,  not  only  of  the  evolution  of  the 
objective  world,  but  even  of  the  progress  of  the  individual's 
personal  adaptation  to  this  world.  For  a  merely  receptive 
individual  not  only  could  not  contribute  anything  to  the  world 
of  realities  and  thoughts,  but  could  never  reach  a  sufficient 
degree  of  objectivity  to  understand  it  adequately.  Receptive 
assimilation  is  a  passage  from  objectivity  to  subjectivity,  and 
the  more  it  progresses,  the  more  personal  realities  and  thoughts 
become,  the  more  they  also  acquire  the  character  of  data  and 
associations  and  lose  their  rational  or  logical  connections  and 
their  objectivity.  It  is  usually  implicitly  supposed  that  this 
disadvantage  can  be  offset  by  having  the  individual  assimilate 
continually  new  experiences.  But  this  would  not  change  the 
character  of  assimilation,  only  widen  its  range.  Assimilation 
once  begun  would  always  tend  toward  subjectivity  instead 
of  approaching  more  and  more  to  a  reconstruction  of  the 
objective  order.  Therefore,  whether  we  agree  that  the 
individual  can  contribute  to  the  evolution  of  the  objective 
world  or  not,  whether  we  treat  the  objective  realities  or 
thoughts  which  the  individual  reaches  as  creations  or  mereh' 


52  CULTURAL  REALITY 

reconstructions,  as  new  objectively  or  new  only  for  him,  we 
must  take  the  other,  active  side  of  the  experiencing  individual, 
the  creative  personality  into  account.  The  result,  the  reality 
or  the  thought  produced  by  the  individual,  has  not  the  same 
importance  from  the  standpoint  of  the  evolution  of  culture 
when  it  is  merely  a  reproduction  of  something  that  already 
existed  as  when  it  is  a  new  creation;  but  the  mechanism  in 
both  cases  is  essentially  the  same.  The  individual  can  reach 
objectivity,  can  reconstruct  an  existing  reality  or  reproduce 
a  subsisting  thought  in  their  objective  character,  not  by 
assimilating  them  merely,  not  by  changing  them  into  sub- 
jective data  or  associations,  but,  on  the  contrary,  by  de- 
personaHzing  his  personal  experiences,  by  changing  his  data 
into  realities  and  his  associations  into  objective  thoughts.  In 
other  words,  there  are  two  ways  for  the  individual  to  include 
any  part  of  the  objective  world  in  his  personality:  the  first  is 
making  this  part  of  the  objective  world  a  part  of  subjective 
experience;  the  second,  identifying  a  part  of  his  own  person- 
aHty  with  this  part  of  the  objective  world.  By  the  first 
method  the  individual  constructs  his  own  subjective  person- 
ahty  as  component  of  the  cultural  world;  by  the  second 
method  he  constructs  it  as  creator  or  at  least  reconstructor  of 
the  cultural  world.  Therefore,  when  we  want  to  understand 
the  cultural  world  in  general,  we  must  take  into  account  this 
objectivating  creative  activity  by  which  the  individual  raises 
his  data  to  the  level  of  realities  and  his  associations  to  the 
level  of  logical  thoughts,  whereas  the  sub jectiva ting  receptive 
process  by  which  reaUties  become  personal  data,  and  thoughts 
personal  associations,  acquires  an  importance  only  for  the 
study  of  certain  special  domains  of  culture  where  the  receptive 
personahty  is  acted  upon  or  studied  as  a  specific  complex 
reality. 


CHAPTER  III 

THE   CONCRETE,  EMPIRICAL  OBJECT  AND 
HISTORICAL  REALITY 

THE   METHOD 

We  have  seen  that  actuality  involves,  in  the  course  of 
objectivation,  a  growing  distinction  between  reality  as  rational 
object-matter  of  thought  and  thought  as  .logical  activity 
handling  the  real  materials.  Absolutely  objective  reahty 
and  absolutely  objective  thought  are  only  ideal  limits  of  this 
actual  objectivation,  and  since  only  that  is  empirically 
attainable  which  can  be  reached  from  actuality,  the  empirical 
world  contains  neither  absolute  reality  nor  absolute  thought; 
any  reahty  which  can  be  empirically  ascertained  must  preserve 
in  some,  however  slight,  measure  the  character  of  a  subjective 
datum,  any  thought  which  can  be  empirically  reconstructed 
must  preserve  in  some,  however  slight,  measure  the  character 
of  a  subjective  association  of  data.  Realities  and  thoughts 
are,  indeed,  objectivated  and  opposed  to  each  other  by  being 
incorporated  into  systems  of  realities  or  thoughts,  and,  as  we 
shall  see  later  on,  it  is  possible  to  consider  them  abstractly 
only  within  a  given  system,  disregarding  characters  they  may 
possess  outside  of  it;  it  is  by  this  abstract  isolation  that 
the  concepts  of  pure  or  absolute  reality,  of  pure  or  absolute 
thought,  have  been  constructed.  Once  ready,  those  concepts 
have  been  used  to  reconstruct  the  full  empirical,  imperfectly 
objective  realities  and  thoughts  in  their  concreteness.  But  it 
is  clearly  an  inversion  of  the  proper  method  to  deduce  formally 
human  experience  and  reflection  in  general  from  a  theory  of 
nature,  or  from  a  theory  of  absolute  reason,  or  from  a  combina- 
tion of  both,  since  nature  and  absolute  reason  are  attainable 
only  by  human  experience  and  reflection. 

S3 


54  CULTURAL  REALITY 

Our  method  must  therefore  be  entirely  different.  In 
studying  reaHty,  which  is  our  present  task,  we  must  proceed 
from  experience  to  more  and  more  objective  rational  reality 
and  not  vice  versa.  Instead  of  assuming,  as  realism  does,  a 
maximum  of  objectivity  and  rationality  as  inherent  in  the 
real  world  and  trying  to  show  how  this  maximum  decreases 
in  personal  experience,  we  must  start  with  the  minimum  of 
objectivity  and  rationality  which  reality  must  have  to  exist 
at  all  as  a  plurality  of  objects  transcending  present  experience 
and  opposed  to  thought,  and  then  show  how  this  minimum  can 
increase.  For,  even  if  we  admitted  provisionally  that  all 
reality  as  such  possessed  approximately  that  amount  of 
rationality  and  objectivity  which  realism  ascribes  to  it,  it 
would  be  none  the  less  continually  experienced  and  recon- 
structed by  experiencing  individuals  in  the  course  of  actual 
reflection.  Therefore,  even  if  the  claims  of  realism  were  justi- 
fied, empirical  reality  would  still  have  to  rise  from  that 
minimum  of  rationality  and  objectivity  which  is  just  neces- 
sary to  make  any  personal  datum  a  real  object  and  to  pass 
through  many  stages  of  rationahzation  and  objectivation, 
before  our  actual  reconstruction  could  empirically  reach  that 
highest  level  of  rationality  and  objectivity  which  is  postulated 
by  realism.  For  a  theory  of  empirical  reality,  the  fact  that 
the  latter  is  continually  reconstructed  by  personal  reflection 
is  at  least  as  essential  as  the  fact  that  it  constitutes  objective 
and  rational  systems  which  to  the  degree  in  which  they  are 
objective  and  rational  are  also  assumed  as  independent  in 
their  constitution  from  personal  experience  and  reflection.  In 
a  word,  empirical  reality  moves  between  two  limits:  the  hmit 
of  personal  subjectivity  and  the  limit  of  absolute  objectivity 
and  rationality,  and  we  must  determine  the  universal  con- 
ditions, as  a  result  of  which  it  is  raised  above  the  first  limit, 
before  we  attempt  to  show  how  it  approaches  to  the  second. 

The  necessity  of  such  a  method  appears  with  particular 
evidence  if  we  realize  that,  while  all  real  objects  must  equally 


EMPIRICAL  OBJECT  AND  HISTORICAL  REALITY  55 

be  reconstructed  from  actuality  in  order  to  exist  for  us  at  all, 
only  some  real  objects  approach  near  enough  to  the  limit  of 
absolute  objectivity  and  rationality  to  permit  us  for  certain 
scientific  purposes  to  ignore  their  dependence  on  the  experien- 
cing and  reflecting  personalities ;  whereas  many  of  them  remain 
very  far  from  this  limit.  Take,  for  instance,  social  institu- 
tions, works  of  literature,  objects  of  religious  worship,  etc.,  in 
general  all  those  objects  which  constitute  cultural  reality  in 
the  traditional,  narrow  sense  of  the  term,  as  opposed  to 
natural  reality.  It  is  clear  that  if  we  tried  to  study  the  former 
by  the  same  realistic  method  which  is  applied  by  physical 
science  to  material  objects  and  treated  them  as  objective  and 
perfectly  rational,  completely  independent  of  personal  experi^ 
ence  and  reflection,  we  would  fail  to  understand  them  properly, 
for  they  are  much  too  far  from  the  absolute  limit  of  realism 
to  be  sufficiently  characterized  from  the  standpoint  of  this 
limit  alone.  Thus,  the  provisional  admission  which  we  made 
above,  that  all  reality  may  possess  approximately  the  maxi- 
mum of  objectivity  and  rationality  which  realism  ascribes  to 
it,  was  too  far-reaching.  The  fact  that  objects  are  continually 
reconstructed  from  actuality  is  not  as  much,  but  more  funda- 
mental for  the  purpose  of  a  general  characteristic  of  reality 
than  the  fact  that  they  belong  to  objective,  rational  systems. 
Reality  is  primarily  empirical  and  only  secondarily  rational; 
all  real  objects  possess  fully  the  empirical  character,  whereas 
their  rationality  is  mostly  imperfect,  admits  innumerable 
gradations,  and  can,  as  we  shall  see  later,  increase  and  decrease 
not  merely  from  the  standpoint  of  personal  experience,  but 
objectively,  from  the  standpoint  of  their  own  real  constitution. 
It  is  impossible  to  understand  the  objective  rationality  of  the 
real  world  without  having  understood  its  concrete  empirical 
character.  We  must  therefore  first  of  all  stud}''  reality  as 
empirical,  leaving  aside  for  the  moment  the  question  of  its 
rational  organization,  and  our  first  probem  will  be:  how  are 
empirical  real  objects  constructed  or  reconstructed  from 
personal  data? 


56  *  CULTURAL  REALITY 

THE  CONTENT 

The  two  fundamental  characters  which  reahty  must  pos- 
sess in  so  far  as  empirical  are,  as  follows  from  our  preceding 
discussion,  the  possibility  of  being  given  in  actual  experience 
and  of  being  reconstructed  by  actual  reflection.  Whatever 
a  real  object  is  as  a  part  of  the  self-existing  reality  in  general 
can  be  empirically  ascertainable  only  in  so  far  as  this  object 
becomes  a  datum  in  the  course  of  experience ;  whatever  a  real 
object  is  as  object-matter  of  logical  thought  in  general  can  be 
empirically  reconstructible  only  if  and  in  so  far  as  this  object 
becomes  the  subject-matter  of  actual  reflection. 

We  call  content  that  which,  while  constituting  the  object 
as  subject-matter  of  reflection,  is  also  given  in  the  course  of 
experience,  or,  in  terms  of  experience,  the  content  can  be 
defined  as  a  datum  of  experience  which  is  also  subject-matter 
of  reflection  and  thus  transcends  the  limitation  of  its  own 
presence  here  and  now. 

The  content  is  therefore  free  from  any  subjective  or 
objective  determinations.  It  is  free  empirically  from  sub- 
jective determinations,  because,  though  in  fact  present  here 
and  now,  it  is  not  affected  by  its  presence  here  and  now  with 
regard  to  that  which  objectively  constitutes  it  as  subject- 
matter  of  reflection;  it  is  given,  but  taken  not  as  personal 
datum,  only  as  subject-matter  of  reflection.  We  can  have 
reality  empirically  given  to  us  only  because  it  is  possible 
for  us  actually  to  ignore  the  fact  of  the  content's  actuality 
and  to  take  it  exclusively  with  regard  to  what  it  is  as  subject- 
matter  of  reflection,  neglecting  its  appearance  in  the  course 
of  personal  experience.  It  is  rationally  free  from  objective 
determinations,  because  whatever  may  be  the  system  of 
objects  to  which  it  belongs,  we  must  have  it  first  given  to  us 
in  itself  before  we  take  it  as  component  of  a  system  of  reality; 
its  rational  character  as  object,  part  of  a  system,  does  not 
exist  for  us  until  we  have  reconstructed  it  by  ourselves,  by 
our  own  logical  thought,  and  therefore  the  content  as  such  is 


EMPIRICAL  OBJECT  AND  HISTORICAL  REALITY  57 

logically  prior  to  any  objective  determination  which  the 
object  may  possess  as  part  of  a  reality.  Since  all  the  defi- 
nitions and  classifications  of  our  theoretic  reflection  bear 
upon  objects,  the  formal  character  of  the  content  must  be 
expressed  negatively;  we  must  exclude  from  the  definition  of 
the  content  all  the  particular  real  forms  which  various  classes 
of  objects  possess,  thanks  to  their  participation  in  various 
systems.  But  this  negation  represents  only  one  side  of  the 
problem;  for,  since  the  content  is  the  basis  of  all  objects, 
since  every  object  must  be  a  content  before  being  anything 
else,  the  content  in  general  must  have  the  possibility  of  ac- 
quiring under  certain  conditions  any  determinations  which 
objects  as  real  possess.  In  denying  every  particular  real 
determination  which  one  might  be  tempted  to  ascribe  to  the 
content  as  such,  we  mean  thus  to  say  simply  that  the  content 
cannot  possess  this  particular  determination  because  this 
would  prevent  it  from  acquiring  other  real  determinations, 
and  a  priori,  before  having  reconstructed  the  entire  objective 
reality,  we  cannot  say  of  any  content  that  it  belongs  only 
to  an  object  of  some  particular  class,  and  not  to  one  of  any 
other  class. 

a)  In  this  sense  the  content  is  neither  perceived  nor 
imagined;  it  is  simply  given  as  subject-matter  of  reflection. 
The  contents  "horse"  and  "centaur,"  the  content  given  in  a 
dream  as  well  as  the  content  given  in  a  waking  state,  are 
formally,  without  regard  to  the  connections  of  the  respective 
objects  as  parts  of  various  systems,  equally  contents  and 
nothing  more  or  less.  The  content  may  even  sometimes 
include  the  character  of  being  perceived  or  that  of  being 
imagined;  this  character  may  belong  to  its  objective  and 
empirical  matter.  For  example,  instead  of  the  content 
"horse,"  we  may  have  the  content  "the  perceived,  or  perceiv- 
able, horse,"  instead  of  "centaur,"  "the  imaginary  being 
centaur."  But  the  content  "the  perceivable  horse"  is  not 
itself    perceived,    and    the    content    "the    imaginary    being 


58  CULTURAL  REALITY 

centaur"  is  not  imagined;  we  have  only  here  instead  of  the 
contents  "horse"  and  "centaur,"  which  we  had  before,  new 
contents,  composed  of  the  contents  "horse"  and  "centaur" 
taken  together  with  certain  contexts,  with  certain  complex 
characters  which  we  call  "being  perceptual"  and  "being 
imaginary, "  even  as  we  may  add  to  a  content  the  character  of 
"being  a  dream,"  or  again  the  character  of  "being  a  common- 
sense  reality,"  acquiring  thus  two  new  and  different  contents. 
Each  such  addition  is  then  an  empirical  subject-matter  of 
reflection  and  together  with  the  other  unqualified  components 
of  the  content  constitutes  a  new  content.  For  the  manner  of 
existence  of  the  content  is  not  determined  by  the  manner  of 
existence  of  the  object,  but  any  determination  of  the  object, 
any  manner  of  existence  that  we  ascribe  to  it,  must  be  given 
as  part  of  a  content  in  order  to  become  empirically  given  at  all. 

h)  The  content  is  neither  particular  nor  general.  Of 
course  it  is  a  unit,  but  it  is  neither  the  member  of  a  class  nor 
a  class.  "This  oak"  is  a  content  and  "the  class  tree"  is  a 
content,  but  the  content  "this  oak"  is  not  a  member  of  a  class 
and  the  content  "the  class  tree"  is  not  a  class  of  which  the 
content  "this  oak"  is  a  member.  Both  contents  are  equally 
units,  equally  single  subject-matters  of  reflection.  We  may 
indeed  connect  logically  the  respective  subjects  and  include 
this  oak  in  the  class  tree;  but  in  so  far  as  the  contents  are 
concerned,  the  result  will  be  expressed  by  two  new  contents, 
"this  oak  as  member  of  the  class  tree,"  which  is  different  from 
the  content  "this  oak,"  and  "the  class  tree  as  exemplified  by 
this  oak,"  which  is  different  from  the  content  "the  class  tree." 
The  determination  of  an  object  as  belonging  to  a  class  must 
become  a  content  in  order  to  be  empirically  realized,  and 
precisely  therefore  the  content  as  such  is  independent  of  this 
determination. 

c)  The  same  holds  true  of  the  distinction  between  con- 
creteness  and  abstractness.  The  content  is  neither  a  concrete 
object  including  all  the  special  characters  necessary  to  its  full 


EMPIRICAL  OBJECT  AND  HISTORICAL  REALITY  59 

determination  as  empirical  reality,  opposed  to  the  abstract 
concept,  nor  abstract  in  the  sense  of  being  a  concept  which 
includes  only  certain  essential  characters  common  to  many 
empirical  objects.  The  content  "the  Louvre"  is  not  a  con- 
crete to  which,  together  with  other  contents,  the  content  "the 
French  Renaissance"  would  correspond  as  an  abstract,  and 
the  "principle  of  conservation  of  energy"  as  content  is  not 
more  abstract  than  any  particular  change  of  one  form  of 
energy  into  another  when  given  as  empirical  subject-matter 
of  reflection.  Of  course,  the  material  object  "Louvre"  can 
be  taken  as  concrete  as  against  the  abstract  ideal  object 
"French  Renaissance,"  and  their  synthesis  may  then  con- 
stitute a  new  content.  But  "the  French  Renaissance"  or 
"the  principle  of  conservation  of  energy,"  as  empirically  given 
subject-matters  of  reflection  do  not  contain  other  contents; 
they  contain  what  is  actually  included  in  them,  and  this  may 
be  a  simple  formula  expressed  in  words  or  other  symbols,  or 
the  formula  with  several  examples  of  its  application,  or  the 
formula  with  a  vague  characterization  of  the  common  features 
of  the  objects  included  under  the  concept,  or  all  this  together. 
We  can  have  thus  several  different  contents,  whereas  the 
objective  idea  is  supposed  to  be  one  and  the  same,  however 
it  is  given,  because  it  is  supposed  to  have  the  same  rational 
constitution  and  the  same  field  of  application.  But  the 
apphcation  of  the  abstract  to  the  concrete  must  itself  become 
a  content  in  order  to  be  given. 

d)  The  content  may  include  simple  or  complex  objects, 
but  neither  the  qualification  of  complexity  nor  the  correlative 
one  of  simplicity  can  be  applied  to  it,  because  the  very  distinc- 
tion between  simple  and  complex  objects  must  be  given  as  a 
content  to  be  given  empirically  at  all.  The  objective  green 
color  of  the  grass  is,  of  course,  simpler  than  the  object  grass; 
this  chair  is  a  simpler  object  than  the  furniture  of  this  room. 
But  the  content  "grass"  is  not  a  composite  of  the  various 
contents  including  different  characters  of  the  object  grass, 


6o  CULTURAL  REALITY 

the  content  "the  furniture  of  this  room"  is  not  a  composite  of 
the  contents  including  the  different  pieces  of  furniture  sepa- 
rately; and  reciprocally,  the  content  ''green"  is  not  a  product 
of  an  analysis  of  the  content  "grass"  into  simpler  elements, 
nor  the  content  "chair"  a  product  of  a  division  of  the  content 
"the  furniture  of  this  room"  into  parts.  But  we  can  have 
contents  in  which  the  comparative  simplicity  and  complexity 
of  objects  is  empirically  given  as  subject-matter  of  reflection, 
for  example,  the  "green  color  of  grass,"  or  "the  furniture 
of  this  room  composed  of  chairs,  tables,  etc." 

e)  In  the  same  way,  the  content  may  include  space  and 
time  as  characters  of  objects :  and  perhaps  even  pure  objective 
space  and  time  may  be  contents.  But  the  content  itself  is 
not  spatially  localized  nor  temporarily  determined,  precisely 
because  spatial  and  temporal  determinations  must  be  given 
within  a  content  to  be  empirically  given  at  all.  Neither,  on 
the  other  hand,  does  it  possess  any  characters  which  would 
make  its  incorporation  as  an  object  into  a  spatial  or  temporal 
system  impossible ;  it  is  not  positively  raised  above  space  and 
time  as  are  the  Platonic  ideas,  for  it  is  not  a  component  of 
any  system  of  ideas.  Thus,  while  the  content  "the  dimen- 
sions of  the  Metropohtan  Opera  House"  contains  space 
but  is  not  itself  in  space,  and  the  content  "the  nineteenth 
century"  contains  a  time-determination  but  is  not  itself  in 
time,  the  content  "the  problem  of  the  syllogism"  contains  no 
spatial  characteristics  but  is  not  essentially  raised  above  space, 
and  "the  equilateral  triangle"  as  content  is  not  essentially 
timeless,  whatever  may  be  the  determinations  of  the  respective 
objects. 

/)  One  of  the  very  important  kinds  of  contents  are  those 
which  contain  changes  of  objects.  But  the  content  "move- 
ment of  the  street  car"  clearly  does  not  move  and  the  content 
"evolution  of  the  state"  does  not  evolve.  Of  course,  the 
objective  concept  which  we  form  of  the  evolution  of  the 
state  can  and  does  evolve  as  an  idea,  by  being  introduced 


EMPIRICAL  OBJECT  AND  HISTORICAL  REALITY  6 1 

into  different  systems  of  the  ideal  reality.  What  is  there 
empirically  given  as  subject-matter  of  reflection  is  either  a 
series  of  distinct  contents,  "the  evolution  of  the  state  as 
conceived  at  the  moment  A,"  ".  .  .  ,  at  the  moment  B," 
".  .  .  .  at  the  moment  C,"  etc.,  or  this  whole  evolution  is 
itself  a  new  content,  "the  evolution  of  the  theory  of  the 
evolution  of  the  state,"  and  this  content  does  not  evolve 
either.  On  the  other  hand,  no  content  can  be  said  to  be  by 
virtue  of  its  objective  essence  changeless,  for  this  would  mean 
that  we  attribute  to  it  a  certain  objective  character  excluding 
change  from  that  which  it  contains.  "The  substance  of 
Spinoza"  will  be  changeless  only  when  it  is  taken  as  part  of 
the  one  ideal  system  of  Spinoza;  "two  times  two  equals  four" 
is  objectively  changeless  only  "by  definition,"  that  is,  as  an 
object-idea,  as  component  of  the  system  of  mathematics. 

g)  Finally,  a  particularly  good  illustration  of  the  nature 
of  the  content  is  found  in  contents  including  personal  ex- 
periences. The  content,  as  we  have  seen  already,  has  no 
personal  characters,  because,  though  it  is  a  datum  of  ex- 
perience, it  is  taken  not  as  datum  of  experience,  but  as 
subject-matter  of  reflection.  Now,  a  personal  datum  of 
experience  can  become  the  subject-matter  of  reflection,  but 
then  it  has  an  impersonal  content.  This  is  precisely  what 
happens  when  I  reflect  about  the  course  of  my  own  experience. 
The  course  of  experience  becomes  a  content  which  is  no  longer 
mine,  no  longer  taken  as  present  here  and  now,  though  in  fact 
present  here  and  now.  I  can  discuss  it,  analyze  it,  com- 
municate it  to  others.  I  can  also  incorporate  it  reflect- 
ively into  the  course  of  my  personal  experience  out  of  which  I 
took  it  to  objectivate  it;  it  will  then  become  an  object,  part 
of  the  reflectively  constructed  system  of  objects  which  I  call 
my  personality  or  my  experience.  Or,  on  the  contrary,  I  can 
connect  it  with  contents  in  which  experiences  of  other  persons 
have  become  subject-matters  of  reflection,  and  then  it  will 
become  a  completely  different  object. 


62  CULTURAL  REALITY 

In  the  examples  quoted  above  we  have  tried  to  deny  the 
content  of  the  most  important  characters  which  under  the 
influence  of  various  philosophical  traditions  may  be  ascribed 
to  it;  we  do  not  pretend  to  have  exhausted  the  list.  The 
principle  is  clear.  All  reality  must  be  accessible  as  such  to 
our  experience ;  the  term  reality  is  meaningless  unless  applied 
to  the  reality  with  which  we  are  empirically  acquainted. 
And  all  reahty  must  be  objectively  reconstructed  from  actual- 
ity by  our  logical  thought;  an  agglomeration  of  data  is  not 
reality.  Therefore,  whatever  there  may  be  in  reality  must 
be  accessible  to  both  our  experience  and  thought.  Any 
object  must  be  able  to  become  a  content,  an  empirically  given 
subject-matter  of  reflection,  for  we  cannot  admit  that  there  is 
anything  in  reality  which  cannot  become  the  material  of  our 
reconstructive  activity;  and,  on  the  other  hand,  any  content 
must  be  able  to  become  an  object,  for  we  cannot  admit  that 
there  is  anything  in  reality  which  we  cannot  reconstruct  out 
of  the  given  materials. 

The  problem  of  the  reconstruction  of  objective  reality 
from  individual  experience  should  not  therefore  be  put,  as 
it  usually  is:  ''How  is  a  copy  of  the  object,  or  a  phenomenal 
object,  constructed  out  of  contents?"  but:  ''How  does  a 
content  become  an  object?"  The  first  question  either  leads 
to  the  conception  of  the  object  as  outside  the  field  of  experi- 
ence, a  transcendent  nucleus  of  contents  inaccessible  in  itself 
and  given  only  through  its  empirical  copies,  or  supposes  that 
the  object — the  "natural  thing" — is  empirically  given  besides 
its  copies — the  "psychological  images."  In  both  cases  the 
essential  problem  is  left  untouched.  In  the  first  case,  besides 
the  transcendent  object  we  must  have  an  empirical,  objective 
copy  of  this  transcendent  object,  and  this  objective  copy 
differs  as  much  from  the  subjective  contents  from  which  it  has 
to  be  reconstructed  as  if  there  were  no  transcendent  object; 
and  its  reconstruction  from  individual  experience  demands 
explanation    quite    independent    of    the    existence    or    non- 


EMPIRICAL  OBJECT  AND  HISTORICAL  REALITY  63 

existence  of  a  transcendent  nucleus.  Even  if  we  supposed 
that  subjective  contents  were  the  product  of  the  influence  of 
the  transcendent  object  upon  the  subject,  the  problem  would 
remam,  for  the  transcendent  object  by  definition  could  not 
be  given  in  the  subjective  content,  and  the  subject  would 
always  have  to  pass  from  the  content  to  the  object,  even 
though  in  this  passage  he  would  reconstruct  only  an  empirical 
copy  of  the  object.  In  the  second  case  the  possibility  of  the 
individual's  experiencing  the  natural  ''thing"  is  simply 
postulated,  and  the  postulate  is  in  the  most  naive  way  self- 
contradictory,  since  the  primary  assumption  implied  in  the 
opposition  between  things  and  psychological  images  is  that 
the  individual  can  experience  only  the  latter. 

These  difficulties  led  to  the  well-known  attempt  to  main- 
tain the  traditional  way  of  putting  the  problem  by  separating 
experiencing  and  thinking;  the  individual  was  supposed  not 
only  to  experience  either  effects  of  the  transcendent  object 
or  subjective  images  of  the  natural  thing,  but  to  reconstruct 
the  transcendent  object  or  the  thing  by  theoretic  reason- 
ing. But  theoretic  thought,  as  defined  by  these  rationalistic 
schools,  is  not  supposed  to  create  reality,  but  only  to  know  it. 
If  it  knows  only  subjective  elements,  it  cannot  know  objects. 
Only  that  can  be  empirically  reconstructed  which  is  both 
empirically  given  and  logically  thinkable  as  objective — that 
is,  only  a  content  can  become  an  object. 

THE  CONNECTION 

The  object  is  real  only  as  part  of  a  system  of  reality. 
The  content  is  precisely  a  datum  viewed  as  ready  to  become 
a  part  of  some  system  of  reality,  but  not  yet  determined 
as  to  the  system  to  which  it  will  belong.  The  question, 
"How  does  a  content  become  an  object?"  is  thus  equiva- 
lent to  the  question,  "How  is  a  content  incorporated  into 
reality?"  or  "How  does  a  content  become  a  part  of  a  real 
system?" 


64  CULTURAL  REALITY 

Here  we  meet  at  once  a  difficulty.  We  have  postponed 
provisionally  the  problem  of  the  rational  organization  of 
reality  as  manifested  in  the  existence  of  systems;  we  have 
found  it  necessary  to  study  reahty  as  empirical  before  study- 
ing it  as  rational.  And  yet  we  see  that  there  is  no  possi- 
bility of  avoiding  the  problem  of  the  system  of  reality,  since 
there  can  be  no  real  empirical  object  except  as  part  of  a 
system. 

This  difficulty,  however,  will  be  easily  overcome.  As 
we  shall  see,  there  are  many  systems  of  reality  and  they  vary 
within  the  widest  Hmits  with  regard  to  the  rational  perfection 
of  their  organization.  If  it  is  necessary  for  an  object  to 
belong  to  a  system  of  reality  in  order  to  be  real,  it  does  not 
follow  from  this  that  the  system  to  which  the  object  belongs 
must  be  rationally  perfect;  on  the  contrary,  though  there  are 
probably  no  perfect  systems  at  all  in  the  empirical  world, 
this  world  is  yet  objective  and  real.  Therefore,  at  the  present 
moment  when  we  are  investigating  reality  only  as  empirical, 
not  as  rational,  we  do  not  need  to  assume  any  degree  of  rational 
perfection  in  the  organization  of  real  systems;  it  is  enough 
for  objects  to  be  real  that  they  belong  to  any  system  whatever, 
however  imperfect  and  chaotic.  A  system  viewed  in  this  way, 
without  regard  to  the  rationality  of  its  organization,  is  a  mere 
complex;  therefore  throughout  this  chapter  we  shall  speak 
mostly  of  complexes,  not  of  systems  of  objects,  and  our  present 
problem  will  be  formulated:  "How  does  a  content  become  a 
part  of  a  real  complex?" 

Two  points  must  be  kept  in  mind  while  trying  to  answer 
this  question.  On  the  one  hand,  indeed,  the  objectivation 
of  the  content  must  go  on  in  actuahty,  otherwise  the  object 
could  not  be  empirically  reached;  on  the  other  hand,  it  must 
have  a  trans-actual  bearing,  must  manifest  itself  in  some  way 
beyond  the  actual  moment,  otherwise  the  object  would  not 
be  real,  would  not  transcend  the  course  of  individual  activity. 
The  content  must  actually  acquire  a  connection  with  other 


EMPIRICAL  OBJECT  AND  HISTORICAL  REALITY  65 

contents  which  will  trans-actually  characterize  it  as  object, 
part  of  a  real  complex. 

The  necessity  of  the  object's  being  reconstructed  in  actual- 
ity makes  the  use  of  the  category  of  relation  here  impossible. 
A  relation  exists  between  ready  objects  as  such;  it  is  already 
objective,  it  is  an  object-matter  of  logical  thought  and  a  link 
of  a  definite  system;  and  its  own  reconstruction  in  actuality 
is  as  much  of  a  problem  as  the  reconstruction  of  the  objects 
between  which  it  exists.  It  cannot  therefore  be  the  factor  of 
objectivation  of  contents.  However  ultimate  it  may  seem 
from  the  abstract  standpoint  of  the  logic  of  things,  from  the 
standpoint  of  concrete  experience  it  presupposes  the  more 
primary  category  of  actual  connection. 

On  the  other  hand,  since  the  connection  must  have  an 
objective  significance,  be  the  ground  of  objectivity,  it  cannot 
be  interpreted  subjectively,  as  a  psychological  process.  The 
theory  which  wants  to  explain  objectivity  by  a  permanence 
and  uniformity  of  psychological  associations  of  data  simply 
begs  the  question.  For  the  psychological  association  either 
has  no  objective  ground,  is  not  founded  in  the  objective  order 
of  the  associated  data,  and  then  it  cannot  serve  to  reconstruct 
this  objective  order  in  experience,  or  it  has  an  objective 
ground,  and  then  it  is  independent  of  the  psychological  course 
of  experience  and  is  not  an  association  but  a  logical  thought. 

The  connection  must  therefore  be  objective,  but  both 
ideal  and  real.  It  is  ideal,  for  it  is  established  by  active 
thought  in  the  course  of  actuality;  as  such,  it  is  conscious  and 
dynamic,  subsisting  fully  only  in  the  very  act  of  its  establish- 
ment and  not  existing  trans-actually  as  a  relation  does.  It 
is  real,  for  it  modifies  the  character  of  its  object-matter  and 
turns  the  content  into  a  real  object.  We  must  leave  the 
investigation  of  its  ideal,  conscious,  and  dynamic  aspect 
provisionally  aside;  here  we  can  study  only  its  real,  trans- 
actual  side,  the  static  result  it  leaves  with  objects.  This 
static  result  is  double. 


66  CULTURAL  REALITY 

On  the  one  hand,  the  contents  which  have  become  actually 
connected  with  other  contents  must  in  some  way  preserve 
empirically  the  character  of  objects  which  they  have  acquired, 
must  in  other  actualizations  appear  as  objects,  as  being 
already  parts  of  a  reahty  into  which  they  have  become  incor- 
porated; otherwise,  reality  would  always  appear  to  us  as 
depending  continually  and  exclusively  on  individual  acts  of 
thought,  whereas  even  in  the  course  of  its  actual  reconstruc- 
tion it  appears  usually  as  more  or  less  imposing  itself  upon 
our  activity.  This  character  which  the  object  preserves 
beyond  actuality  and  with  which  it  appears  in  every  new 
actualization  can  be  neither  a  part  of  its  content,  for  then  it 
would  not  make  the  content  anything  else  than  a  content, 
nor  a  relation,  for  a  relation  presupposes  both  the  reality  of  the 
object  and  its  own  objectivity.  There  remains  only  one 
possibiHty.  The  new  empirical  character  which  a  content 
acquires  when  it  becomes  object  by  an  act  of  thought  con- 
necting it  with  other  contents,  must  be  simply  an  objective 
and  still  empirical  ground  for  repeating  indefinitely  this  act 
of  thought,  for  reconstructing  indefinitely  the  connection  in 
actuality.  When  we  say  that  a  content  which  has  been 
actively  connected  with  other  contents  has  become  real,  this 
character  of  "being  real"  from  the  empirical  standpoint  can 
be  only  a  special  feature  which  becomes  and  remains  attached 
to  the  content  as  object  and  by  virtue  of  which  its  connection 
with  other  contents  remains  latent  even  when  not  actually 
reconstructed,  and  can  be  made  actual,  conscious,  and  dynamic, 
at  any  moment  and  by  any  individual.  By  calling  it  an 
objective  ground  of  an  actual  connection  we  wish  to  have  it 
understood  that  it  is  less  than  a  relation,  which  is  supposed 
to  be  always  explicit,  always  the  same  whether  actually 
thought  or  not,  but  more  than  a  mere  subjective  possibility 
of  thinking  the  same  connection  over  again  without  anything 
in  the  object  being  the  reason  for  the  thinking  it  over.  This 
distinction  is  rather  difficult  for  our  intellectual  habits,  for  we 


EMPIRICAL  OBJECT  AND  HISTORICAL  REALITY  67 

have  been  accustomed  to  think  of  objects  either  as  not  con- 
nected at  all,  so  that  the  establishment  of  a  connection  is 
absolutely  arbitrary,  or  as  fully  related,  so  that  our  thought  is 
logically  compelled  by  the  relation  to  connect  them.  Mean- 
while, in  concrete  experience  what  is  left  of  a  connection  once 
established  is  merely  a  suggestion  of  its  actual  reconstruction, 
a  suggestion  which  gives  to  our  thought  the  ground  for 
repeating  the  connecting  act  without  logically  forcing  it  to 
do  it. 

We  call  the  meaning  of  an  object  this  suggestion  to  repro- 
duce actually  a  connection  which  has  been  established  be- 
tween this  object  and  others,  when  this  suggestion  appears 
as  grounded  in  the  nature  of  this  object  as  such.  It  is  the 
meaning  which  makes  the  empirical  distinction  between  the 
content  and  the  object  persist,  even  when  the  act  in  which 
the  connection  is  established  is  not  being  actually  performed; 
it  is  the  meaning  which  makes  reality  empirically  transcend 
the  limits  of  present  individual  experience.  It  is  not  given 
with  the  content  nor  is  it  a  content;  and  still  it  is  empirical,  it 
quaHfies  empirically  the  content  as  real.  It  is  empirical  in 
this  unique  sense,  incomparable  with  the  empirical  character 
of  the  content,  of  being  a  qualification  of  an  object  as  existing 
within  a  certain  sphere  of  empirical  reality. 

The  meaning  is  only  one  static  result  of  the  connection: 
it  is  the  characteristic  of  the  object  with  reference  to  the 
actual  thought  which  reproduces  it.  Objectively,  in  the  real 
complex,  the  reality  of  the  object  must  also  manifest  itself 
with  reference  to  other  objects.  An  object  is  a  part  of  a  real 
complex  only  if  it  influences  other  objects  by  being  connected 
with  them,  if  it  determines  their  contents  really  and  objec- 
tively. The  connection  by  which  a  content  is  made  an  object 
is  real,  not  merely  ideal,  and  introduces  the  object  into  the 
sphere  of  existence,  only  because  it  in  some  way  modifies  some 
other  content  with  regard  to  the  content  that  it  objectivates ; 
the  objectivated  content  becomes  the  ground,  the  starting- 


68  CULTURAL  REALITY 

point  of  some  real  determination  of  the  content  with  which  it 
becomes  connected.  This  is  what  the  real  relation  is  supposed 
to  produce  absolutely  and  objectively,  by  its  very  existence, 
for  the  objects  are  supposed  to  be  permanently  determined  by 
it  in  their  content  with  regard  to  each  other.  Of  course  in 
concrete  experience  such  a  permanent  reciprocal  determina- 
tion is  impossible,  because  the  primary  connection,  being 
established  in  actuaHty,  can  really  determine  a  content  only 
while  it  is  actually  being  produced  or  reproduced;  and, 
because  it  is  directed  in  time,  it  passes  from  one  content  to 
another  as  they  successively  become  actualized,  and  therefore 
can  determine  only  one  of  them  from  the  standpoint  of  the 
preceding  one,  not  both  simultaneously  and  reciprocally. 
However,  the  act  which  objectivates  a  content  by  connecting 
it  with  another  leaves  a  double  trace:  a  meaning  acquired  by 
the  fijst,  objectivated  content  and  a  new  determination,  a 
variation  of  the  second.  The  suggestion  involved  in  the 
meaning  of  the  first  content  to  repeat  the  connection  is  there- 
fore also  a  suggestion  to  reaffirm,  to  fix  the  determination  of 
the  second. 

If,  now,  the  second  content  thus  determined  by  the  con- 
nection with  the  first,  objectivated  content  becomes  in  turn 
the  starting-point  of  a  new  connection  which  gives  it  a  mean- 
ing with  regard  to  the  first  content  and  determines  the  latter 
from  the  standpoint  of  the  former,  we  have  the  most  elemen- 
tary possible  complex  of  objects.  The  complexes  which  we 
really  find  are,  of  course,  composed  of  much  more  numerous 
objects,  each  having  several  meanings  and  determined  with 
regard  to  several  other  objects  and  all  thus  directly  or  indi- 
rectly connected  with  each  other.  And  when  a  set  of  contents 
has  become  a  complex  of  interconnected  objects,  the  influence 
of  each  of  these  objects  on  the  other  objects  of  the  complex, 
which  constitutes  the  objective  ground  of  its  "being  real,"  is 
expHcit  and  effective  only  in  so  far  as  consciously  and  dynami- 
cally reproduced,  but  it  remains  latent  and  implicit  beyond 


EMPIRICAL  OBJECT  AND  HISTORICAL  REALITY  69 

actuality.  As  we  shall  see  more  in  detail  later  on,  the 
greater  the  number  and  stability  of  the  connections  of  which 
an  object  is  the  starting-point,  the  greater  the  complexity  and 
fixity  of  its  meaning  and  the  sphere  of  its  influence  on  other 
objects,  the  higher  also  is  the  degree  to  which  it  is  real. 

Let  us  take  several  illustrations. 

a)  The  most  popular  example  illustrating  the  meaning  is 
a  word.  The  word  as  mere  sensual  content — sound  or  written 
sign — is  not  an  object,  unless  it  is  incorporated  into  the 
physical  world;  but  this  is  a  relatively  complicated  problem 
which  we  shall  discuss  later.  But  when  we  use  it  as  symbol 
of  another  content,  when  we  refer  it  to  this  other  content  by 
an  act,  it  acquires  the  character  of  a  specific  object  and 
preserves  it  even  when  its  connection  with  the  content 
symbolized  is  no  longer  actual.  Its  meaning,  as  we  clearly 
see  in  this  case,  is  neither  a  part  of  its  content  nor  an  objective 
relation  between  it  and  the  content  indicated,  but  merely  a 
suggestion  to  perform  the  same  act  of  thought  as  the  one 
already  performed,  a  suggestion  which  may  lead  to  a  repeti- 
tion of  the  act  when  the  content  of  the  word  appears  in  actu- 
ality. The  more  frequently  the  act  is  repeated,  the  stronger 
becomes  the  suggestion,  the  more  fixed  the  meaning,  though 
its  essential  character  does  not  change;  it  does  not  become 
either  a  part  of  the  content  or  a  relation,  and  the  only  explicit 
manifestation  of  this  growing  fixity  of  the  meaning  is  the 
growing  probability  that  this  objectively  grounded  act  and 
not  any  other  act  of  symbolization  will  be  performed  when- 
ever the  word  appears  in  actuality.  This  relative  stabihty 
and  uniformity  of  the  meaning  is  usually  not  limited  to  the 
experience  of  one  individual,  because  the  word  normally  is 
a  social  object,  its  meaning  is  approximately  the  same  for 
everybody  in  the  social  group,  everybody  obtains  a  similar 
suggestion. 

At  the  same  time,  the  reality  of  the  word  manifests  itself 
objectively  by  the  fact  that  the  content  given  with  reference 


70  CULTURAL  REALITY 

to  the  word  acquires  thereby  a  special  determination,  becomes 
given  with  a  special  character  corresponding  to  the  meaning 
of  the  word  and  conditioned  by  the  word.  Thus,  it  is  isolated 
from  other  contents  and  stabilized,  it  acquires  prominently 
the  categorical  characteristic  of  a  thing,  a  quality,  a  state,  it 
becomes  more  or  less  distinctly  qualified  as  pleasant,  good, 
important,  or  unpleasant,  bad,  insignificant,  etc.  It  is  hardly 
necessary  to  emphasize  this  well-known  influence  of  words 
upon  the  contents  symbolized  by  them,  and  we  observe  how 
this  influence  grows  with  the  fixation  of  the  meaning  of  the 
words. 

The  same  field  of  language  furnishes  us  with  another  type 
of  examples.  Besides  the  acts  in  which  we  pass  from  the  word 
to  the  content  symbolized,  there  are  usually  other  acts  in 
which  it  is  the  content  symbolized  that  acquires  in  turn  a 
meaning  with  reference  to  the  word:  its  appearance  "sug- 
gests the  word."  We  see  in  the  history  of-  culture  many 
interesting  examples  of  how  far  this  reference  of  a  content 
to  a  word  is  able  to  give  objective  reality  to  the  former;  it 
has  frequently  been  noticed  that  a  content  constituting  an 
imaginary  extension  of  the  natural  or  social  reality,  when 
permanently  called  by  a  word,  can  become  so  vivid  that  no 
efforts  of  philosophical  or  scientific  criticism  can  destroy  the 
belief  that  it  must  exist  somewhere  in  nature  or  society,  since 
it  has  a  name.  The  variations  of  content  which  the  word 
then  acquires  by  being  referred  to  from  the  standpoint  of  the 
symbolized  object  are  best  illustrated  by  the  examples  of 
onomatopoeia  and  of  the  morphological  assimilation  to  some 
other  word  used  of  a  similar  object. 

h)  The  myth  gives  another  interesting  illustration.  The 
meaning  of  the  myth  involves  many  and  complicated  sug- 
gestions. These  suggestions  are,  first,  those  of  the  aesthetic 
or  theoretic  acts  of  thought  by  which  the  mythical  personality 
is  connected  with  other  mythical  personalities  or  happenings 
in  the  pantheon  of  the   social    group;    secondly,    those   of 


EMPIRICAL  OBJECT  AND  HISTORICAL  REALITY  71 

practical  or  religious  acts  by  which  the  mythical  personality 
is  connected  with  definite  objects  used  in  the  ritual,  temples, 
sacred  vessels,  sacred  food,  drink,  incense,  bodies  of  the  priests, 
etc.,  and  with  such  objects  in  the  sphere  of  individual  or  social 
interest  as  are  supposed  to  be  affected  by  the  interference  of  the 
mythical  personality.  It  is  this  whole  complex  of  meanings 
which  makes  the  myth  subjectively  as  real  in  the  experience 
of  the  group  as  any  sensual  reality.  This  point  appears  with 
particular  clearness  when  we  compare  the  myth  with  the 
popular  tale  into  which  it  often  degenerates ;  the  tale  lacks  all 
these  complex  meanings,  and  therefore  its  personalities  are  no 
longer  treated  by  the  group  as  real.  Objectively,  with  refer- 
ence to  other  objects,  the  myth  is  real  by  all  the  influence  it 
exercises,  through  the  acts  in  which  its  meaning  is  realized, 
over  individual  ideas  and  emotions,  over  social  organization, 
and  even  over  the  material  world,  indirectly  by  putting  certain 
demands  on  technique,  directly  by  conditioning  the  view  of 
the  material  world  which  prevails  at  the  given  period  and  in  the 
given  society;  and  certainly  its  objective  reality  is  not  less 
manifest  than  that  of  many  a  material  object  whose  influence 
is  not  even  approximately  as  wide. 

c)  Take  now  the  bank  note.  Of  course,  it  is  an  object 
as  part  of  the  physical  world,  but  this  character  is  almost 
completely  ignored  when  we  treat  it  as  an  economic  object. 
Then  we  neglect  its  physical  and  chemical  properties  and  pay 
attention  only  to  its  directly  given  sensual  content.  It  is 
for  us  not  a  complex  of  atoms  or  electrons  but  a  note  of 
certain  dimensions,  certain  color,  with  certain  pictures  and 
signs  printed  on  it,  etc.  And  this  content  has  an  economic 
reality  because  it  suggests  a  plurality  of  acts  which  consist  in 
planning  or  effecting  economic  exchanges  and  which  establish 
connections  between  the  note  and  other  contents — those  of 
objects  that  can  be  bought  with  the  note.  The  meaning,  and 
with  it  the  reality  of  the  note,  lasts,  even  though  no  new  acts 
are  performed,  as  long  as  the  objective  ground  is  there,  as  we 


72  CULTURAL  REALITY 

see  from  the  example  of  the  miser ;  the  note  loses  reality  only 
if  these  acts  become  limited  or  impossible,  if,  for  example, 
paper  money  becomes  depreciated.  Objectively,  the  reality 
of  the  note  expresses  itself  in  all  the  modifications  that  its 
meaning  determines  in  the  economic  and  material  reality — 
changes  of  property,  production,  transportation,  and  con- 
sumption of  goods,  etc. 

d)  The  problem  of  consumption  suggests  another  kind  of 
reality  which  a  content  acquires  when  it  becomes  connected 
with  our  body  by  a  reference  to  our  needs.  Thus,  an  unknown 
fruit,  if  we  once  more  exclude  by  abstraction  its  objectivity 
as  part  of  the  physical  world,  which  is  in  fact  taken  into 
account  only  on  special  occasions,  remains  a  content  without 
much  objective  character  as  long  as  we  merely  contemplate 
it  with  regard  to  its  form,  color,  etc.  But  the  acquaintance 
with  its  use,  that  is,  the  performance  of  the  acts  of  observing, 
planning,  or  effecting  the  movements  which  will  bring  it  into 
touch  with  our  palate  and  throat,  gives  it  immediately  a 
meaning  and  makes  it  appear  real.  The  connection  between 
the  fruit  and  the  body  is  less  fixed  in  the  acts  of  observing  or 
planning  than  in  those  of  actual  consumption,  and  therefore 
the  object  acquires  a  less  definite  reality  in  the  first  case  than 
in  the  second — a  difference  which  we  shall  be  able  better 
to  understand  later  on.  There  is  an  interesting  point  here 
which  shows  that  it  is  indeed  the  fruit  as  content  which 
acquires  a  specific  reality  distinct  from  the  material  reality, 
not  the  ready  material  object  which  acquires  a  new  subjective 
significance.  When  the  fruit  is  consumed,  the  material 
object  is  no  longer  there;  it  is  evident,  however,  that  the 
content  is  not  annihilated  but  preserves  the  meaning  it  thus 
acquired,  perhaps  for  the  first  time.  It  remains  an  object 
of  a  specific  kind,  a  hedonistic  value.  When  it  later  returns 
in  actuality,  it  suggests  the  same  acts,  even  though  the 
"thing,"  the  material  "fruit"  is  a  new  one,  or  even  if  the 
content   is   given   only   as  an   "image"  or  a  "dream,"  for 


EMPIRICAL  OBJECT  AND  HISTORICAL  REALITY  73 

the  specific  object,  the  hedonistic  value,  is  the  same.  Objec- 
tively, its  reality  is  shown  by  the  variations  it  adds  to 
the  content  of  our  body,  the  new  smell-,  taste-,  and  touch- 
sensations  which  result  from  its  being  brought  into  connection 
with  our  body  and  which  may  be  revived  even  if  the  connec- 
tion is  not  fully,  only  partly  realized,  as  in  a  hallucination  or 
a  dream. 

e)  But  our  body  is  not  only  an  exceptionally  rich  content 
continually  modified  and  determined  by  the  objects  which 
are  brought  into  connection  with  it  in  satisfying  our  needs; 
it  is  also  a  prominently  real  object;  we  can  say  the  real  object 
par  excellence,  because  of  the  active  connections  of  which  it 
is  the  starting-point,  because  of  the  modifications  which  we 
bring  with  its  help  into  other  objects.  The  type  of  these 
connections  is  different  from  the  one  discussed  in  the  previous 
example;  here  the  connections  are  ''material"  and  it  is  the 
body  itself  which  acquires  through  them  the  character  of  a 
material  object,  whereas  in  the  previous  case  they  were  hedo- 
nistic and  it  was  other  contents  which  became  hedonistic 
objects  with  reference  to  the  body.  But  the  mechanism  of 
objectivation  is  the  same;  here  the  actual  connection— the 
conscious  and  dynamic,  though  at  the  same  time  material, 
act — leaves  after  it  a  new  meaning  added  to  the  body  as 
"instrument"  of  this  particular  kind  of  activity  (a  question 
to  which  we  shall  return  later)  and  a  new  determination  of  the 
content  which  became  the  object-matter  of  this  activity,  and 
both  the  meaning  and  the  determination  remain  latent;  the 
body  appears  later  in  actuality  as  able  to  perform  this  move- 
ment, the  other  content  as  determinable  in  the  same  way  by 
this  movement.  The  other  content,  we  repeat,  not  the 
particular  material  object,  for  the  material  object  that  was 
the  object-matter  of  the  bodily  activity  may  no  longer  be 
in  existence,  the  movement  might  even  have  consisted  in 
destroying  its  materiality.  When  this  content  reappears  in 
actuality,  whether  as  other  material  object  or  as  "image, "  the 


74  CULTURAL  REALITY 

possibility  of  determining  it  in  the  same  way  by  the  same 
actual  connection  with  the  body  is  always  there,  whether  the 
connection  and  the  resulting  determination  be  performable 
materially  or  only  " in  imagination  "  (which  is  a  later  problem). 
/)  Not  only  the  body  but  many  other  contents  can  be 
objectivated  by  the  same  type  of  connection,  that  is,  by  a 
conscious  and  dynamic,  though  at  the  same  time  "material," 
action  which  gives  them  the  actual  meaning  of  material  objects 
and  makes  them  objectively  real  by  modifying  other  contents 
with  their  help.  They  are  the  material  "instruments"  in 
general.  In  order  to  understand  the  question  properly,  we 
must  provisionally  forget  the  fact  that  material  instruments 
are  already  real  even  before  being  used  for  a  particular 
activity.  This  is  not  very  difficult,  as  we  still  occasionally 
find  children,  savages,  and  even  ourselves  testing  the  reality  of 
given  sensual  contents  by  trying  to  use  them  as  material 
instruments,  that  is,  by  trying  to  produce  with  their  help 
materially  some  modifications  in  other  contents,  even  if  only 
in  our  own  bodies.  Moreover,  whatever  may  have  been  the 
pre-existing  "realness"  of  an  artificial  instrument,  such  as 
an  ax  or  a  sewing-machine,  it  is  clear  that  this  pre-existing 
"realness"  of  a  lump  of  matter  is  relatively  unimportant  as 
compared  with  the  highly  specified  and  definite  "realness" 
which  it  acquires  by  being  particularly  adapted  to  perform 
special  activities.  Thus,  in  the  course  of  ordinary  experience 
the  material  meaning  of  a  piece  of  iron  or  wood  is  poorer  than 
that  of  the  sewing-machine  or  ax  made  of  them ;  they  appear 
less  real  in  actuality  because  they  count  less  for  activity. 
They  may  indeed  acquire  a  very  complex  meaning  and  appear 
as  very  highly  real  when  the  technician  takes  them  as  practical 
materials,  or  the  scientist  as  object-matter  of  theoretic  investi- 
gation, precisely  because  then  they  become  actually  connected 
with  many  other  objects,  become  incorporated  into  systems; 
but  aside  from  this,  their  average  subjective  "realness"  in 
common-sense  experience  lacks  much  as  compared  with  that 


EMPIRICAL  OBJECT  AND  HISTORICAL  REALITY  7$ 

of  a  ready  and  much-used  instrument.  Objectively  their 
existence  is  also  less  effective,  for  the  field  of  their  actual 
influence  is  narrower;  the  number,  variety,  range,  and 
definiteness  of  modifications  which  a  piece  of  iron  or  wood  can 
determine  in  other  contents  are  normally  much  smaller  than 
those  which  an  ax  or  a  sewing-machine  can  bring  forth. 

g)  Passing  now  to  this  pre-existing  real  character  of  the 
material  object  as  such,  if  we  only  exclude  provisionally  the 
naturalistic  postulate  of  the  absoluteness  of  the  material  world 
in  general,  we  shall  see  that  the  empirical  objectivation  of  a 
content  as  material  object,  even  without  reference  to  its  use 
as  instrument,  has  the  same  explanation  as  the  objectivation 
of  a  content  as  symbol,  as  religious,  economic,  or  hedonistic 
object.  The  material  object  appears  real  in  actuality  because 
the  numerous  conscious  and  dynamic  connections — spatial, 
qualitative,  causal — which  have  been  established  between  it 
and  many  other  contents  have  incorporated  it  empirically 
into  a  wide  and  intricate  complex.  The  meaning  of  this 
object  involves  thus  numerous  suggestions  of  possible  acts, 
particularly  since  many  material  things  have  similar  contents 
and  their  suggestions  agglomerate.  These  suggestions  are 
usually  more  numerous,  more  fixed,  and  simpler  than  those 
offered  by  most  of  the  objects  of  other  types,  though,  as  the 
example  of  a  material  object  worked  over  into  an  artificial 
instrument  shows,  their  number  and  definiteness  are  far  from 
having  attained  any  absolute  limit  and  can  greatly  increase. 
And  the  real  character  of  the  material  object  is  also  objectively 
manifested  by  the  influence  which  it  has  over  other  objects; 
only  our  naturalistic  prepossessions  make  us  assume  that  this 
influence  is  independent  of  the  actual,  conscious,  and  d3aiamic 
connections  which  we  may  establish  between  this  object  and 
others,  that,  for  example,  any  modification  which  a  material 
object  can  produce  in  other  objects,  aside  from  its  being  used 
as  instrument  by  us,  is  due  to  relations  of  causality  purely 
objective  and  independent  of  our  thought. 


76  CULTURAL  REALITY 

But  it  is  clear  that,  since  the  empirical  existence  of  the 
causal  relation,  just  as  the  empirical  existence  of  any  part  or 
side  of  reality,  depends  on  its  actual  reconstruction,  whatever 
is  empirical  in  the  causal  relation  must  be  deducible  from 
actual  contents  and  connections.  As  a  bond  between  actually 
given  objects  in  which  one  of  these  objects  now  and  here 
empirically  influences  the  content  of  the  other,  it  can  be 
nothing  but  a  very  stable  connection.  It  can  be  actually 
reaHzed  by  any  experiencing  individual  at  any  moment  only 
if  this  individual  actively  connects  the  given  objects;  other- 
wise, in  this  individual's  actual  experience,  these  objects  will 
not  be  connected  at  all,  there  will  be  no  dynamic  bond  between 
them.  Of  course  this  bond  is  objective;  it  transcends  any 
particular  actuality,  is  not  reducible  entirely  to  the  act  by 
which  a  particular  individual  determines  the  objects  as 
causally  connected  now  and  here;  but  it  is  reducible,  as 
empirical  objective  connection,  to  the  totality  of  actual  and 
conscious  acts  by  which  various  individuals  at  various 
moments  have  determined  one  of  these  objects  from  the 
standpoint  of  the  other  as  causally  modified  by  it  in  its 
content.  Now,  such  an  objective  connection  becomes  a 
relation  when  we  abstractly  ignore  its  dependence  on  actuality 
in  general  and  treat  it,  not  as  an  objective  possibility  of  acts 
which  will  actually  connect  the  objects  when  empirically 
given,  but  as  a  trans-actual  object-matter  of  logical  thought, 
as  a  self-existing  dynamic  influence  exercised  by  one  object 
upon  another  in  a  rational  order  of  reality.  We  shall 
investigate  later  on  the  origin  and  significance  of  this  con- 
ception. 

There  is  one  important  factor  which  makes  it  difiicult  for 
us  to  see  that  the  material  reality  is  as  dependent  in  its 
empirical  existence  on  actually  established  connections  as  any 
other  reaUty;  it  is  that  material  reality  has  been  always  the 
favorite  object-matter  of  theoretic  thought  and  no  real  con- 
nection can  be  reproduced  in  actuaUty  by  this  thought; 


EMPIRICAL  OBJECT  AND  HISTORICAL  REALITY  77 

reality  imposes  itself  upon  our  knowledge  as  seemingly  quite 
independent  of  the  latter.  This  is  due,  as  we  shall  see  later 
on,  to  the  specific  character  of  knowledge  which  never  tends 
to  reproduce  pre-existing  real  connections  but  takes  their 
results  as  given  and  reconstructs  them  in  a  new  way.  But 
actually  each  real  connection  in  particular  can  be  reproduced 
by  some  other  kind  of  activity — technical,  hedonistic,  aes- 
thetic, etc. — and  only  in  so  far  as  thus  reproduced  by  some 
activity  can  it  be  actually  experienced. 

h)  There  is  one  sphere  in  which  even  theoretic  thought  is 
able  to  produce  or  reproduce  entirely  the  objective  reality  of 
contents:  it  is  the  sphere  of  scientific  and  philosophical  ideas. 
**The  principle  of  conservation  of  energy,"  "the  binomial 
theorem  of  Newton,"  "the  concept  of  substance,"  can  be 
given  by  thought  a  double  kind  of  meaning.  As  formulae 
they  have  a  symbolic  character  in  reference  to  empirical 
contents;  their  own  content  is  then  merely  the  formula  as 
set  of  sounds  or  signs;  their  meaning  is  of  the  same  type  as 
the  meaning  of  a  word;  they  are  then  not  scientific,  but  philo- 
logical objects.  But  they  can  be  taken,  together  with  the 
postulate  of  their  empirical  apphcation  and  eventual  illustra- 
tions of  this  apphcation,  as  forms  of  reahty  (we  shall  see  later 
the  significance  of  this  term)  and  then  objectivated  as  ideas 
with  reference  to  other  ideas.  In  other  similar  connections, 
from  the  standpoint  of  other  ideas,  their  own  content  becomes 
determined,  acquires  a  higher  degree  of  exactness,  abstractness, 
and  generahty,  and  in  this  way  they  are  incorporated  into 
a  system  of  ideas  and  acquire  a  specific  real  character,  on 
account  of  which  they  can  be  called,  in  spite  of  the  seeming 
contradiction  of  terms,  the  ideal  reality. 

As  these  examples  sufficiently  show,  contents  can  become 
incorporated  into  any  type  of  reahty  by  actual  connections. 
The  more  frequently  the  connections  are  reproduced,  the 
more  fixed  become  the  meanings,  the  stronger  the  suggestions 
which  they  have  in  the  experience,  not  only  of  the  same,  but 


78  CULTURAL  REALITY 

of  any  individual  whether  acquainted  or  not  with  their  former 
actuahzations.  We  find  innumerable  gradations  from  the 
faintest  aesthetic  suggestion  presented  by  a  new  combination 
of  sounds  down  to  the  strongest  and  most  definite  suggestions 
of  consumption  offered  by  food  or  suggestions  of  resistance 
and  weight  given  by  material  objects  when  we  look  at  them. 
Of  course,  we  must  always  keep  in  mind  here  that  the 
individual  can  actually  experience  a  meaning  only  after  having 
reconstructed  the  connection  in  actuality.  But  he  can 
actually  experience  a  previously  unknown  character  of  a 
content  also  only  after  having  reconstructed  this  character 
in  actuality  by  being  brought  to  perceive  the  content  from  a 
certain  particular  standpoint.  I  must  be  trained  to  experience 
meanings,  to  realize  suggestions;  but  I  must  also  be  trained 
to  experience  contents,  to  see  in  them  such  sides  as  I  have 
not  seen  before.  But  this  necessity  does  not  permit  me  to 
conclude  that  every  meaning  begins  to  exist  only  when  I 
experience  it,  any  more  than  I  conclude  that  every  content 
begins  to  exist  only  when  I  perceive  it.  I  know  usually, 
when  I  experience  a  previously  unknown  content,  whether  I 
have  just  produced  it  by  my  own  activity  or  merely  repro- 
duced it  as  it  pre-existed  in  the  cultural  world,  for  in  the  latter 
case  it  has  a  definiteness  and  clearness  which  it  seldom  pos- 
sesses in  the  first  case.  In  the  same  way  I  distinguish  a 
meaning  which  is  given  to  an  object  for  the  first  time  by  me 
from  one  which  I  have  merely  discovered  and  reconstructed  in 
actuality  and  which  the  object  had  long  ago,  for  the  suggestion 
in  the  latter  case  is  incomparably  stronger.  The  distinction 
may  be  difficult  in  intermediary  cases,  when  either  the  old 
meaning  is  not  yet  very  fixed  or  the  new  meaning  is  merely  a 
transference  of  some  old  meaning  to  a  new  content.  There 
is  also  no  doubt  that  some,  though  it  is  impossible  to  say 
a  priori  how  much,  of  the  relative  objectivity  with  which 
many  meanings  appear  when  reconstructed  is  due  to  the  con- 
sciousness of  social  sanction. 


EMPIRICAL  OBJECT  AND  HISTORICAL  REALITY  79 

THE    CONCRETE   HISTORICAL   OBJECT 

On  the  ground  of  the  content  and  the  connection,  as 
discussed  in  the  preceding  sections,  it  is  thus  possible  to 
reconstruct  any  objective  and  rational  reality  from  actual 
experience  and  by  actual  reflection;  for  in  the  content  any 
rational  determination  of  a  real  object  can  be  actually  experi- 
enced and  in  the  connections  any  rational  organization  of  a 
real  system  can  be  actually  reproduced.  We  shall  study  in 
later  chapters  the  problem  how  this  reconstruction,  or  con- 
struction, of  a  rational  and  objective  reaHty  is  actually  per- 
formed, how  complexes  of  objects  by  acquiring  a  rational 
organization  become  more  and  more  perfect  systems,  and  how 
objects  included  in  these  complexes  acquire  a  rational  deter- 
mination which  makes  them  more  and  more  independent  of 
actual  experience. 

But  the  problems  concerning  the  empirical  character  of 
reaHty  are  not  exhausted  by  our  having  shown  how  an  object 
and  a  complex  of  objects  is  empirically  produced  or  reproduced 
in  actuahty.  For  there  are  many  possible  ways  of  empirically 
determining  and  objectivating  a  content,  many  complexes  into 
which  an  empirical  object  may  be  introduced  in  the  course  of 
actuahty,  and  none  of  these  ways  of  objectivation  is,  from  the 
standpoint  of  experience,  the  only  rational  one  to  the  exclusion 
of  others;  none  of  these  complexes  determines  the  object  so 
perfectly  and  completely  as  to  make  other  determinations 
of  the  same  object,  even  entirely  different  ones,  rationally 
impossible.  There  is  hardly  any  object  whose  concrete  real- 
ity is  completely  exhausted  by  any  one  system  to  which  it 
belongs ;  in  the  examples  which  we  quoted  in  the  last  section 
every  object  was  found  to  belong  to  several  different  types  of 
reaHty. 

Moreover,  there  are,  as  we  know,  no  absolutely  objective 
and  absolutely  rational  systems  in  the  world  as  recon- 
structible  from  actuality  and,  on  the  other  hand  also,  no 
actually   produced    complex   of   interconnected    contents  is 


8o  CULTURAL  REALITY 

merely  subjective  and  none  is  ever  deprived  of  that  mini- 
mum of  rationality  which  it  must  possess  in  order  to  make 
real  objects  of  the  contents  of  which  it  is  composed.  Once  a 
content  has  been  actually  connected  with  other  contents,  it  is 
no  longer  a  mere  datum,  for  it  has  become  in  some,  however 
small,  measure  independent  of  the  course  of  personal  experi- 
ence: it  may  return  indefinitely  with  the  same  objective 
determination  in  other  experiences  of  the  same  or  of  other 
individuals,  even  though  the  set  of  data  with  which  it  returns 
will  always  be  more  or  less  different.  Once  a  number  of 
contents  have  been  actually  interconnected  and  have  formed 
a  complex,  this  complex  is  no  longer  a  mere  association  of  data, 
for  it  has  become  in  some,  however  small,  measure  rational; 
for  each  and  all  of  the  connections  can  be  reproduced  indefi- 
nitely in  actuality  as  the  same  objective  connections  by  the 
same  or  other  individuals,  even  though  the  associations  in 
which  these  contents  will  be  given  as  data  in  the  course  of 
personal  experience  will  vary  from  case  to  case.  This  is 
precisely  the  most  elementary  and  fundamental  difference 
between  a  connection  of  objects  and  an  association  of  data, 
for  the  association  of  data  is  as  such  unique  and  irreproducible. 
In  so  far  as  the  individual  connects  objects  to  some  degree 
at  least  independently  of  the  succession  and  centralization  of 
data  in  his  present  experience,  by  giving  these  objects  mean- 
ings and  determining  their  contents  with  regard  to  each  other, 
he  is  no  longer  a  mere  subject  of  data  but  a  creator  of  reality. 
Though  the  results  of  this  conscious  connecting  activity,  the 
more  or  less  imperfectly  organized  complexes,  may  appear 
as  relatively  subjective  and  relatively  irrational  from  the 
standpoint  of  more  objective,  more  rationally  perfect  systems, 
they  are  not  absolutely  subjective,  not  absolutely  irrational. 
The  difference  of  objectivity  and  rationality  between  vari- 
ous real  systems  is  one  of  degree,  not  of  nature.  We  shall 
later  on  examine  this  difference  as  manifested  in  the  rational 
organization  of  various  systems.     Here  we  can  discuss  only  its 


EMPIRICAL  OBJECT  AND  HISTORICAL  REALITY  8i 

manifestations  in  experience.  And  we  notice  that,  in  so  far 
as  empirically  given,  complexes  of  objects  present  indeed 
many  gradations  in  two  respects :  with  regard  to  their  stability 
and  with  regard  to  their  wideness. 

Thus,  the  difference  between  a  part  of  the  common-sense 
reality,  an  imaginary  construction  of  a  poet,  and  a  dream 
shows  itself,  first  of  all,  in  the  various  degrees  of  fixity  with 
which  the  respective  contents  and  meanings  impose  themselves 
upon  the  reconstructing  individual.  During  the  reconstruc- 
tion of  all  three  of  these  complexes,  some  part  is  still  played 
by  the  individual  objectivation  of  data  and  of  associations  of 
data  into  real  objects  and  rational  connections;  for  even  the 
common-sense  reality,  the  most  fixed  of  the  three,  reaches 
the  individual  only  as  personal  data  and  associations  and 
must  be  reconstructed  in  actuality  by  this  kind  of  objectiva- 
tion in  order  to  be  empirically  given  as  reality  at  all.  But 
in  the  common-sense  reality  the  channels  of  objectivation  are 
so  fixed,  the  meanings  established,  and  the  contents  deter- 
mined by  such  innumerable  repetitions  that  the  individual 
is  hardly  conscious  of  his  reconstructive  activity  and  every 
individual  reconstructs  it  in  nearly  the  same  way.  The 
imaginary  construction  of  a  poet  or  artist,  without  being 
irrational  or  subjective,  is  more  personal  and  unusual;  it 
can  be  repeated  by  others  in  the  same  form  only  because  the 
poet  or  artist  tries  consciously  to  use  for  his  construction  a 
sufficient  number  of  fijced  meanings  and  determinations  to 
make  its  reconstruction  by  others  easy.  Whereas  in  the 
dream  the  intention  to  communicate  the  new  reality  to  others 
is  absent  and  there  is  no  limitation  imposed  by  common  sense 
or  social  tradition  on  the  construction  of  the  dream-complex, 
which  thus  appears  as  purely  personal.  And  yet  the  dream 
is  still  an  objective  reality.  It  is  a  curious  fact  that  dreams 
after  having  been  treated  for  innumerable  centuries  as  objec- 
tive realities,  were  for  a  period  considered  as  pure  associations; 
but  now  their  "meaningfulness,"  with  the  ancient  mystical 


qoAl5 


82  CULTURAL  REALITY 

exaggerations  excluded,  once  more  begins  to  be  taken  into 
account.  However  great  may  be  the  difference  of  fixity 
between  a  dream,  an  artistic  construction,  and  a  part  of 
common-sense  reality,  all  of  them  are  objective,  because  all 
of  them  are  reconstructible. 

The  second  empirical  difference  of  degree  between  com- 
plexes is  their  wideness.  Even  if  the  artist's  construction,  or 
the  dream,  is  fully  objectivated,  it  remains  isolated  from  the 
rest  of  reality,  a  rather  limited  complex — the  latter  more,  the 
former  less.  Meanwhile,  an  objectivated  part  of  the  common- 
sense  reality  is  by  innumerable  meanings  connected  with  many 
other  objects  continually  returning  in  actuality.  Therefore, 
even  if  in  my  dream  the  objects  and  their  connections  are  the 
same  as  a  certain  waking  complex,  after  I  awake  they  do  not 
appear  real  to  me  because  I  do  not  find  the  expected  con- 
nections between  them  and  the  rest  of  my  usual  environment 
If  I  find  myself  unexpectedly  in  a  new  environment  not  con- 
nected with  my  usual  environment,  I  have  in  a  smaller  degree 
exactly  the  same  attitude  toward  my  new  experiences  as 
toward  a  dream. 

Of  course  both  the  fact  that  an  object  can  belong  to  several 
different  complexes  and  the  differences  of  stability  and  wide- 
ness between  these  complexes  themselves  can  be  empirically 
ascertained  only  if  our  experience  and  reflection  are  not  at 
every  moment  exclusively  limited  to  the  one  more  or  less 
systematic,  more  or  less  stable  and  wide  complex  which  we 
are  actually  producing  or  reproducing  here  and  now.  If  our 
personality  were  always  absorbed  by  the  one  complex  which 
is  actually  reproduced,  we  would  know  nothing  about  the 
relativity  and  limitation  of  this  complex  and  about  the  fact 
that  an  object  which  we  are  actually  taking  as  part  of  this 
complex  exists  also  within  other  complexes.  This  would 
be  the  case  if  our  personalities  were  exclusively  active,  per- 
fectly logical,  and  entirely  isolated  from  other  personalities. 


EMPIRICAL  OBJECT  AND  HISTORICAL  REALITY  83 

But  this  is  not  the  case.  It  has  been  shown  in  the  preceding 
chapter  that  a  personahty  is  both  active  and  passive,  that  it 
not  only  objectivates  reahty  in  actual  reflection  but  also 
subjectivates  reality  in  actual  experience.  And  the  actually 
objectivated  domain  of  reflection  is  by  no  means  identical  with 
the  actually  subjectivated  domain  of  experience.  While  we 
are  reproducing  actively  some  complex,  other  complexes 
impose  themselves  upon  our  passive  personality  by  becoming 
associations  of  data  without  entirely  ceasing  to  be  complexes, 
and  an  object  which  we  have  just  incorporated  into  one 
complex  may  return  at  any  moment  as  element  of  some  other 
complex,  preserving  even  as  a  passively  experienced  datum 
some  of  its  original  objectivity.  Our  actuality  is  thus  a 
ceaseless  and  chaotic  alternation  of  active  reproduction  of 
some  realities,  or  passive  experiencing  of  others.  Further, 
even  without  this  interference  of  passively  accepted  experi- 
ences our  active  reproduction  of  reality  is  far  from  being 
logically  perfect :  we  seldom,  and  only  by  a  special  intentional 
effort,  reproduce  a  pre-existing  real  complex  fully  and  ade- 
quately with  all  its  objects  and  connections,  and  we  never 
reproduce  a  relatively  wide  complex  continuously,  but  always 
in  fragments,  with  interruptions  during  which  other  complexes 
occupy  our  active  attention.  Finally,  neither  as  passively 
experiencing  nor  as  actively  reproducing  personalities  are  we 
entirely  isolated,  but  our  experience  and  reflection  are  at 
every  step  interfered  with  by  the  experience  and  reflection 
of  others  and  vice  versa.  The  full,  concrete  sphere  of  expe- 
rience and  reflection  of  any  individual  taken  within  a  certain 
period  of  duration  presents  from  the  purely  empirical  stand- 
point an  irrational  dynamic  combination,  fragmentarily 
experienced,  fragmentarily  reconstructed,  intermingled,  mul- 
tiform, and  changing.  And  the  total  empirical,  real  world 
viewed  in  its  full  concreteness  as  a  synthesis  of  all  individual 
experiences  and  reflections  is  an  enormous,  wild,  and  rushing 


84  CULTURAL  REALITY 

chaos  of  innumerable  complexes,  inextricably  and  irrationally 
combined,  becoming  and  developing  without  any  possible 
universal  order  whatever. 

It  is  clear  that  under  these  conditions  our  conception  of 
the  concrete  empirical  object,  and  of  the  concrete  empirical 
reality  as  composed  of  such  objects,  must  be  radically  different 
from  the  traditional  conceptions  of  realistic  empiricism.  The 
latter  continually  works  under  the  assumption  that  reality 
is  rationally  one,  even  if  we  cannot  reconstruct  this  unity 
a  priori  but  must  reach  it  step  by  step  from  experience,  and 
that  therefore  each  empirical  object  as  element  of  this  reality 
must  be  rationally  determinable  in  one  way,  must  possess  one 
definite  objective  nature,  be  objectively  similar  to  itself  in 
spite  of  the  manifold  and  often  conflicting  variations  which  it 
presents  when  reconstructed  by  different  individuals  and  at 
different  moments.  The  problem  of  realistic  empiricism  has 
always  been  therefore  to  reach  this  rationally  one  object  from 
the  varying  and  conflicting  views  of  this  object  taken  in 
different  connections.  And  this  is  not  an  ontological,  but  a 
psychological  problem.  Treating  reality  as  independent  of 
both  our  experience  and  our  reflection,  realism  entirely  neglects 
the  difference  between  a  mere  datum  and  an  object  as  part 
of  a  complex  actually  constructed  by  reflective  thought, 
ignores  the  empirical  objectivity  of  the  complex,  and,  instead 
of  asking  how  the  object  is  determined  in  its  nature  by  the 
various  empirical  complexes  in  which  it  is  taken,  asks  merely 
how  can  the  object,  which  is  supposed  to  be  already  com- 
pletely determined  in  its  nature,  be  known  by  human  individ- 
uals with  the  help  of  their  imperfect  and  varying  experiences. 

The  usual  and  most  popular  attempt  to  reconcile  the 
supposedly  one  real  nature  of  the  object  with  the  multiple 
empirical  views  of  this  object  is  to  assume  that  there  is  indeed 
a  variety  of  individual  "representations,"  but  that  these 
representations  are  not  objects,  but  only  refer  to  the  one 
common  object-as-such.     The  oldest  and  simplest  criterion 


EMPIRICAL  OBJECT  AND  HISTORICAL  REALITY  85 

making  it  possible  to  distinguish  what  in  individual  repre- 
sentations belongs  to  this  common  object  is  the  identity 
of  content;  that  which  is  identically  given  to  all  individuals 
is  supposed  to  belong  to  the  object,  that  which  is  not  is 
qualified  as  subjective,  due  to  the  personal  peculiarities  of  the 
experiencing  subjects.  But  this  criterion  can  work  only  when 
there  is  enough  uniformity  in  a  social  group  to  make  the 
variations  of  individual  representations  relatively  insignificant, 
and  when  the  problems  concerning  objects  are  simple  enough 
to  be  solved  with  the  help  of  such  roughly  approximate  defini- 
tions of  objects  as  are  still  preserved  in  popular  language. 
For  if  we  really  compare,  as  far  as  can  be  done,  individual 
representations  of  an  object  in  many  groups  and  at  various 
periods,  we  find  that  their  identical  elements  are  relatively 
few,  seldom  sufficient  to  construct  out  of  them  even  a  very 
simple  object,  and  dwindle  to  nothing  when  we  pass  from 
material  reality  to  social,  religious,  aesthetic,  moral,  or  scien- 
tific objects.  Moreover,  we  find  more  and  more  frequent 
cases  in  the  evolution  of  culture  where  the  representation  of  a 
single  individual — for  instance,  a  scientist — must  be  admitted 
to  be  more  objective  than  the  average  of  all  the  other  repre- 
sentations put  together,  and  yet  differs  from  it  very  widely. 
Realistic  empiricism  has  thus  to  adopt  necessarily  a 
different  criterion,  which  it  expresses  in  the  theory  that  the 
object,  as  distinguished  from  individual  representations, 
contains  of  these  representations  all  that  can  be  rationally 
and  without  contradiction  ascribed  to  it,  all  that  is  reconcilable 
with  its  objective  nature  as  determined  by  the  character  of 
the  reality  to  which  it  belongs  and  by  the  logical  demands  of 
the  system  of  thoughts  of  which  this  reality  is  the  object- 
matter.  This  is  to  say,  in  other  words,  that  the  content  of 
the  object  is  determined  by  the  system  of  objects  of  which  it 
is  a  part;  that  there  is  one  system  in  which  its  real  content 
is  entirely  determined,  and  that,  if  various  individuals  try  to 
incorporate  it  into  other  systems,  these  other  systems  either 


86  CULTURAL  REALITY 

are  merely  components  of  that  one  system,  or  if  they  are  not, 
then  the  divergent  determinations  which  these  individuals 
give  to  the  content  of  the  object  do  not  belong  to  it  objectively. 

From  whatever  standpoint  we  look  at  this  theory  and 
its  implications,  it  is  philosophically  impossible.  We  can 
understand  how  a  scientist  may  delude  himself  that  his 
science  at  the  given  moment  is  able  to  explain  the  content 
of  a  certain  object  entirely,  because  he  is  already  dealing  not 
with  the  full  concrete  object,  but  with  the  object  as  part  of 
the  specific  real  system  which  his  science  is  then  investigating ; 
that  is,  an  object  from  whose  content  all  the  variations  which 
it  possesses  outside  of  this  system  have  been  excluded.  But 
already  in  the  past  the  same  object  was  explained  differently 
many  times  by  the  same  science  and  will  be  explained  dif- 
ferently in  the  future,  and  each  of  these  successive  explanations 
may  be  equally  complete  in  its  own  sphere;  for  the  problems 
which  a  science  puts  change  with  the  evolution  of  this  science, 
and  none  of  its  successive  problematizations  has  the  entire 
concrete  object  to  deal  with,  but  each  takes  the  object  only  as 
determined  by  certain  specific  connections.  Furthermore, 
the  object  is  also  being  treated  simultaneously  in  other  sci- 
ences, where  its  content  is  again  differently  given;  it  is, 
perhaps,  also  the  object-matter  of  technical  activity,  of 
religious  worship,  of  hedonistic  enjoyment,  of  economical 
exchange,  of  aesthetic  reproduction,  and  in  each  of  these 
systems  its  content  differs.  Only  a  metaphysical  fanaticism 
can  expect  to  reduce  all  these  systems  to  one  in  which  the 
objects  are  entirely  determined  in  their  content.  And  if,  in 
spite  of  their  plurality,  the  determination  which  each  of  these 
systems  gives  to  the  objects  is,  nevertheless,  objective,  where 
shall  we  put  any  limit  to  objectivity  and  how  can  we  sepa- 
rate subjective  representations  from  objective  variations  of 
content  ? 

This  much  for  the  rational  side  of  the  question.  But  the 
theory  of  representations  as  distinct  from  objects  and  of 


EMPIRICAL  OBJECT  AND  HISTORICAL  REALITY  87 

objects  constructed  out  of  representations  is  also  false  empiri- 
cally, because  it  does  not  correspond  to  anything  in  experience. 
There  is  certainly  no  distinction  in  empirical  reality  between 
the  object  and  the  representation  or  image  of  the  object. 
When  I  see  Lake  Michigan,  there  is  in  my  experience  only  one 
object,  the  lake,  and  not  two,  the  lake  and  its  representation. 
If  someone  else  looks  at  the  lake  with  me,  I  know  that 
there  is  always  one  object,  the  lake,  and  not  three — the  lake, 
his  and  my  representation — nor  even  two,  his  representation 
and  mine.  When  sitting  in  my  room  in  Chicago  I  remember 
the  Notre  Dame  of  Paris  there  is  empirically  again  only  one 
object,  Notre  Dame,  and  not  two,  Notre  Dame  and  my 
representation.  And  again,  if  someone  else,  in  my  presence 
or  not,  is  also  at  this  moment  remembering  Notre  Dame,  there 
is  still  only  one  object,  not  two  or  three.  The  same  is  true 
of  my  or  anybody  else's  actual  realization  of  a  myth,  a  mathe- 
matical proposition,  an  economic  value,  etc.;  there  is  never 
any  distinction  or  opposition  in  experience  between  the  object 
and  its  image,  but  there  is  always  only  the  object  given  as 
content  in  my  experience  and  as  object-matter  of  my  thought. 
If  thus  on  the  realistic  assumptions  it  is  impossible  to 
reconstruct  even  the  empirical  content  of  the  concrete  object, 
the  difficulties  when  its  meaning  is  taken  into  account  are 
still  greater.  The  problem  of  the  meaning  as  conditioning 
human  activity  is  the  central  point  of  the  theory  of  values,  the 
chief  stumbling-stone  of  both  realism  and  idealism.  Philos- 
ophy has  always  tried  to  simplify  the  question  of  the  object  by 
reducing  either  the  meaning  to  the  content  or  the  content  to 
the  meaning.  In  the  first  case  it  assumes  that  the  individual's 
activity  in  response  to  the  object  is  naturally  conditioned  by 
the  content  of  this  object.  In  so  far  then  as  the  content  is 
supposed  identical  for  everybody,  the  meaning  should  also  be 
identical;  in  so  far  as  the  content  is  admitted  to  vary  from 
individual  to  individual,  the  meanmg  should  vary  accordingly. 
The  primary,  naive  standpoint  that  contents  are  thoroughly 


88  CULTURAL  REALITY 

common  led  thus,  first  of  all,  to  a  righteous  indignation, 
typified  in  the  first  Greek  thinkers,  against  the  variation  of 
individual  reactions  to  them,  rather  than  to  an  explanation 
of  this  variation;  and  when  the  explanation  was  attempted,  it 
took  the  radical  sophistic  form  of  the  assumption  of  a  complete 
variety  of  individual  contents.  But  the  complete  variety  of 
contents  explained  too  much,  for  a  certain  identity  of  meanings 
was  undeniable,  and  it  is  from  this  partial  identity  of  meanings 
as  manifested  in  common  valuations  that  Socratism  took  its 
start  and  concluded  that  contents  must  be  also  partially 
identical.  The  golden  period  of  Greek  philosophy  is  thus 
characterized  with  respect  to  this  problem  by  an  assumption 
of  the  community  of  the  essential,  conceptual  part  of  contents 
and  the  community  of  the  rational,  perfect  meanings  cor- 
responding to  it  and  determined  by  it,  while  the  varying 
individual  meanings  of  objects  corresponded  to  and  were 
assumed  to  be  determined  by  the  individually  differentiated, 
unessential,  sensual  part  of  contents.  But  the  apparent 
harmony  of  this  solution  was  soon  disturbed  by  the  circum- 
stance that,  on  the  one  hand,  the  conceptual  identity  of 
content  could  not  guarantee  a  rational  identity  of  meaning, 
the  most  varying  practical  conclusions  could  \>e  drawn, 
abstractly  and  in  concrete  behavior,  from  any  theory  of  the 
world  as  world  of  contents,  and  on  the  other  hand,  a  quite 
irrational  set  of  religious  and  practical  meanings  became,  in 
Christian  dogmatics,  the  source  of  a  common  theoretic 
conception  of  the  world.  And  thus,  when  after  renaissance 
and  reformation  the  problem  was  taken  up  again,  it  was  put 
on  a  different  ground,  in  view  of  the  importance  which  individ- 
ual conscious  life  with  all  its  valuations  had  taken  during  the 
domination  of  faith.  Contents  and  meanings  were  entirely 
separated  from  each  other,  the  first  as  real,  the  second  as 
,,  ideal,  and  while  on  the  one  hand  a  unique  objective  system 
of  reality  was  constructed  as  a  system  of  natural  things 
and  relations,  of  absolute  contents,  on  the  other  an  equally 


EMPIRICAL  OBJECT  AND  HISTORICAL  REALITY  89 

objective  ideal  system  was  attempted  as  a  system  of  abso- 
lute values — of  absolute  meanings,  more  exactly.  The  non- 
common  parts  of  contents  and  meanings  both  found  their 
refuge  in  individual  consciousness. 

Thus,  the  problem  of  the  meaning  has  become  much  more 
comphcated  and  its  solution  depends  essentially  on  the 
question  where  individual  consciousness,  including  both 
contents  and  meanings,  is  supposed  properly  to  belong.  If  it 
is  conceived  as  a  part  of  nature,  then  its  meanings  are  supposed 
to  be  reducible  to  contents,  and  their  variations  and  identities 
exphcable  by  the  variations  and  identities  of  the  given  contents 
themselves  and  of  human  nature;  men  react  to  things  in  a  way 
that  is  conditioned  both  by  these  things  and  by  their  own 
character  as  natural  beings.  In  this  case  the  objectivity  of 
meanings  and  their  identity  for  all  become  dissociated  prob- 
lems, for  meanings  may  be  identical  without  being  objec- 
tive, objective  without  being  identical.  Objective  meanings, 
judged  by  the  standards  of  natural  objectivity,  would  be  such 
as  would  follow  from  the  nature  of  the  object  to  which  they 
are  attached,  whereas  meanings  identical  for  living  beings 
would  have  to  follow  from  the  uniformity  of  nature  of  the 
beings  and  would  change  when  this  nature  changed.  The 
chief  effort  of  naturahsm  in  this  line  is  therefore  the  harmoni- 
zation of  these  two  explanations  by  assuming  that  individual 
meanings  in  so  far  as  identically  common  to  living  beings 
tend  to  adapt  themselves  to  the  objective  relations  of  things. 
The  possibility  of  such  an  adaptation  presupposes,  first,  that 
individually  given  contents  adapt  themselves  to  the  absolutely 
determined  contents  of  the  things  in  nature,  and  secondly,  that 
individual  meanings  are  exclusively  conditioned  by  individual 
contents.  The  biological  theory  of  knowledge  tries  to 
demonstrate  that  by  means  of  knowledge  the  individual 
determination  of  contents  subordinates  itself  to  their  objective 
determination  in  nature.  But  naturalism  is  unable  to  show 
that   individual   meanings    are    exclusively    conditioned    by 


; 


9©  CULTURAL  REALITY 

individually  determined  contents,  for  this  would  imply  that 
all  individual  activity  is  entirely  conditioned  by  the  rational 
organization  in  knowledge  of  the  contents  of  individual 
experience,  whereas  the  illogical  character  of  emotion  and  will 
proves  the  opposite.  Thence  all  the  types  of  voluntaristic 
reaction  against  naturalistic  rationalism.  These  take  the 
opposite  standpoint  and  emphasize  that  it  is  rather  the  mean- 
ing, as  manifested  in  the  intention,  the  feeling,  the  desire,  etc., 
which  determines  the  selection,  qualification,  and  organization 
of  contents  in  individual  experience.  But  this  reaction,  in 
order  to  save  this  voluntaristic  individual  experience  from  the 
reproach  of  subjectivity,  as  against  the  theoretically  deter- 
mined objectivity  of  the  world  of  natural  things  and  relations, 
has  either  to  deny  the  objectivity  of  the  latter,  which  would 
lead  to  pure  subjectivism,  or  to  subordinate  the  objectivity 
of  contents  to  the  objectivity  of  meanings  and  thus  lead 
logically  to  the  philosophy  of  absolute  meanings. 

This  philosophy  begins  by  pointing  out  that  in  the  world 
of  meaningless  existence,  that  is,  nature,  contents  are  in  fact 
determined  by  meanings,  by  the  meanings  which  the  theorist 
gives  them  when  treating  them  as  objectively  interrelated 
things,  and  that  "the  world  of  nature  is  valueless  because  it 
is  valuable  for  us  to  conceive  it  as  valueless."  Then  it  goes 
on  to  demonstrate  that  the  objectivity  of  the  natural  world  is 
based  on  the  objectivity  of  the  meanings  and  that  this  demands 
absolutely  objective  meanings  as  supreme  criteria.  The 
scientific  meanings  are  then  considered  only  as  part  of  the 
world  of  absolutely  objective  meanings,  which  includes  also 
moral,  aesthetic,  religious,  and  perhaps  other  meanings  as 
well.  But  even  if  we  grant  that  in  this  theory  the  objective 
world  of  contents  can  be  deduced  from  the  objective  world  of 
absolute  meanings,  it  is  evident  that  the  contents  of  individual 
experience  always  appear  as  simply  given  and  are  not  deducible 
either  from  objective  or  from  subjective  meanings:  they  are, 
as  we  have  seen,  objectivated  data  whose  source  is  in  the 


EMPIRICAL  OBJECT  AND  HISTORICAL  REALITY  91 

trans-individual  world  of  contents,  and  as  data  they  come  to 
the  individual  not  only  independently  of  his  objective  or  sub- 
jective valuations,  but  often  even  against  them.  The  philos- 
ophy of  absolute  meanings  may  subordinate  the  abstract 
world  of  nature  to  absolute  valuations,  acts  of  the  absolute 
subject,  but  it  cannot  prevent  the  empirical  subject  with  his 
empirical  meanings  from  being  in  some  way  dependent,  as 
to  the  contents  of  his  experience,  on  the  trans-actual  empirical 
reality. 

Moreover,  the  philosophy  of  absolute  meanings  meets  for 
the  first  time,  in  its  full  significance  as  independent  problem, 
the  problem  of  opposition  between  subjective  and  objective 
meanings,  entirely  distinct  from  the  problem  of  the  opposition 
between  subjective  and  objective  contents,  to  be  solved  no 
longer,  as  in  the  past,  in  connection  with  the  distinction  of 
things  and  representations,  but  by  entirely  new  methods. 
But  it  clearly  fails  to  give  any  satisfactory  solution.  It  is 
easy  to  say  that,  if  individual  moral,  aesthetic,  rehgious, 
valuations  are  not  absolute,  it  is  because  the  individual  is  not 
a  pure  subject  of  absolute  valuations,  but  has  also  an  existen- 
tial character,  as  a  part  of  the  world  of  contents.  But,  even 
so,  since  the  world  of  contents  is  supposed  to  be  produced  by 
the  absolute  subject,  in  so  far  as  the  individual  is  a  subject,  he 
should  agree  with  the  latter.  The  chief  difficulty  for  the 
theory  of  absolute  meanings,  just  as  for  the  theory  of  absolute 
contents,  comes  not  from  the  very  personal,  stupid,  and  ego- 
tistic appreciations,  parallel  to  illusions  in  the  sphere  of 
contents,  but  from  the  numerous  highly  developed,  but 
conflicting,  valuations  of  morality,  art,  religion,  etc.,  each  of 
which  imposes  itself  on  different  individuals  with  the  same 
degree  of  objectivity  and  which  it  is  impossible  to  reduce  to 
one  system,  just  as  it  is  impossible  to  reduce  to  one  the  varying 
and  partial  systems  based  on  the  contents  of  things. 

Thus  the  attempt  to  reconcile  the  principle  of  one  reality 
with   the  empirical  manifoldness   of  content   and   meaning 


92  CULTURAL  REALITY 

which  the  same  object  possesses  in  different  complexes  is  a 
complete  and  all-sided  failure.  However  comfortable  may 
be  the  common  assumption  that  every  object  has  one  unique 
and  self-consistent  nature  of  its  own,  which  does  not  vary 
though  its  subjective  representations  may  differ  and  even 
contradict  each  other,  it  must  be  definitively  classed  with  such 
beliefs  as  the  "direct  action"  of  magical  causality  and  the 
existence  of  "faculties  of  the  soul."  The  fact  is  that,  viewed 
as  to  their  contents  exclusively,  objects  are  determinable 
in  innumerable  ways  according  to  the  complexes  in  which 
they  are  included ;  these  complexes  cannot  be  reduced  to  one 
another  because  each  constitutes  a  distinct  objective  whole, 
for  between  the  most  impersonal  determination  of  a  content 
in  a  physical  theory  and  the  most  personal  determination  of 
this  content  in  a  dream  the  difference  is  merely  one  of  degree. 
Viewed  as  to  their  meanings  exclusively,  objects  can  have 
innumerable  meanings  according  to  the  systems  to  which  they 
belong ;  there  are  no  absolute  unique  meanings  to  which  others 
could  be  reduced,  and  between  the  meaning  given  to  an  object 
by  the  wisest  or  holiest  man  in  accordance  with  a  deeply 
impersonal  and  highly  moral  view  of  the  world,  and  the 
meaning  given  to  it  by  an  imbecile  or  a  thief  for  his  momen- 
tary personal  needs,  the  difference  is  one  of  degree,  not  of 
essence. 

Finally,  between  the  objects  viewed  in  their  content  and 
the  objects  viewed  in  their  meaning  there  is  a  discrepancy 
impossible  to  overlook.  Both  the  content  and  the  meaning 
of  an  object  are  due  to  actual  connections  between  this  object 
and  others,  but  to  different  connections,  for,  as  we  have  seen, 
the  actual  connection  is  directed  and  one-sided  and  gives  the 
meaning  to  one  object  and  the  determination  of  content  to 
another,  so  that  the  connections  which  fix  the  meaning  are 
necessarily  different  from  those  that  determine  the  content. 
The  same  content  may  thus  acquire  the  most  various  mean- 
ings;    the   same   meaning   may    qualify   the    most   various 


EMPIRICAL  OBJECT  AND  HISTORICAL  REALITY  93 

contents.  Of  course,  certain  meanings  are,  as  a  matter  of 
fact,  more  often  attached  to  certain  contents  than  other 
meanings,  but  this  does  not  constitute  any  logical  ground  for 
treating  this  fact  as  in  any  way  objectively  conditioned  either 
by  the  character  of  the  contents  or  by  the  character  of  these 
meanings.  A  stone  is  more  often  qualified  as  material  object 
than  as  religious  object,  a  bank  note  as  economic  value 
rather  than  as  hedonistic  or  technical  value,  a  picture  as 
aesthetic  rather  than  as  scientific  value.  But  it  is  no  more 
essential  for  the  content  "stone"  to  be  a  material  thing  than 
an  object  of  religious  worship,  not  more  essential  that  the 
content  "bank  note"  be  put  into  circulation  than  be  imme- 
diately enjoyed  by  a  miser  or  used  by  a  spendthrift  to  fight  a 
cigar,  not  more  essential  for  the  content  "picture"  to  be 
aesthetically  admired  than  to  serve  as  source  for  a  study  of 
the  costumes  of  the  epoch.  On  the  other  hand,  though  we 
more  often  ascribe  material  meaning  to  certain  contents, 
economical  meaning  to  other  contents,  aesthetic  or  religious 
meaning  to  still  others,  there  is  nothing  in  the  character  of 
these  meanings  which  would  exclude  the  possibility  of  their 
application  to  any  other  contents  whatever.  There  is  no 
content  which  could  not  acquire  the  character  of  a  material 
thing,  if  it  were  only  in  a  dream  or  a  hallucination,  no  content 
which  could  not  be  treated  as  object  of  economical  exchange, 
no  content  which  could  not  become  an  object  of  aesthetic 
admiration,  or  religious  worship,  etc.  This  is  no  longer  true 
when  we  have  to  deal  with  an  object  exclusively  within  a 
limited  complex:  there  its  content  and  its  meaning  do  belong 
to  each  other,  not  because  they  depended  on  each  other 
originally,  but  because  the  object  has  become  defined  in  this 
complex  with  regard  to  both  content  and  meaning.  Thus  the 
stone  in  the  system  of  the  mineralogist  or  of  the  stone-cutter 
is  a  material  thing,  but  the  stone  Kaaba  is  an  object  of 
refigious  worship  in  the  religious  system  of  the  Mohammedans 
of  Arabia;   the  paper  bill  is  an  economic  value  in  the  system 


94  CULTURAL  REALITY 

of  the  business  man,  a  hedonistic  value  in  the  system  of  the 
miser,  etc. 

Within  one  hmited  complex  the  object  is  thus  as  rational 
in  its  content,  its  meaning,  and  in  the  coexistence  of  a  certain 
content  and  a  certain  meaning  as  this  complex  by  virtue  of 
its  own  rational  organization  can  make  it.  But  there  is  no 
rational  connection  whatever  between  the  various  aspects 
which  one  object  presents  in  different  complexes.  We  have 
to  separate  definitively  the  problem  of  the  object  as  rationally 
but  only  partially  determined  within  a  single  system  from 
that  of  the  object  as  completely  but  irrationally  determined  in 
many  more  or  less  systematic  and  objective,  but  different  and 
disconnected,  complexes.  We  must  realize  that  the  concrete, 
empirical  object,  taken  in  the  totality  of  the  content  and 
meaning  given  to  it  in  all  the  various  empirical  complexes  to 
which  it  belongs,  can  satisfy  neither  the  demands  of  traditional 
epistemology,  which  requires  it  to  be  the  same  for  different 
individuals,  nor  the  demands  of  traditional  logic,  which  re- 
quires it  to  possess  a  self -identical,  non-contradictory  objective 
nature,  nor  those  of  traditional  philosophy  of  values,  which 
requires  its  meaning  and  its  content  to  belong  rationally 
together. 

We  call  a  concrete  empirical  object  in  its  total  content  and 
meaning  a  historical  object.  The  choice  of  this  term  is 
justified  by  the  fact  that  all  the  various  more  or  less  systematic 
empirical  complexes  of  which  a  concrete  object  is  a  part  are 
constructed  or  reconstructed  in  the  course  of  historical 
becoming,  and  thus,  as  will  be  seen  presently,  the  concrete 
object  in  its  total  content  and  meaning  is  not  fully  real  at 
once,  but  realizes  itself  more  and  more  in  its  entire  historical 
existence,  as  simultaneously  or  successively  produced  or 
reproduced  by  various  individuals  at  various  moments.  The 
historical  object  includes  thus  all  the  determinations  of  content 
and  all  the  meanings  that  it  possesses  in  all  the  various  com- 
plexes of  which  it  is  a  part,  with  no  distinction  between 


EMPIRICAL  OBJECT  AND  HISTORICAL  REALITY  95 

subjective  and  objective  characters.  It  is  only  the  datum 
which  is  or  rather  becomes  subjective  in  the  course  of  its 
subjectivation;  but  the  datum  contains  no  characters  which 
the  object  does  not  possess,  it  is  not  a  subjective  copy  of  the 
object,  it  is  the  object  while  becoming  subjective,  the  same 
object  which,  in  a  subsequent  objectivation,  acquires  a  new 
meaning  and  a  new  variation  of  content.  Every  character 
which  is  ascribed  to  the  historical  object  in  the  course  of 
objectivation  belongs  to  this  object  itself,  because  the  fact 
that  a  character  has  been  ascribed  to  an  object  in  the  course 
of  objectivation  means  that  this  character  has  been  added  to 
it  by  connecting  it  with  other  objects,  by  making  it  a  part  of  a 
complex.  This  principle  is  easily  recognized  in  the  case  of 
many  cultural  objects.  Thus,  almost  everybody  will  agree 
that  a  myth  as  such  possesses  all  the  content  and  meaning 
ascribed  to  it  by  the  members  of  the  group,  that  a  word  as 
philological  object  includes  all  the  variations  of  pronunciation 
and  of  significance  given  to  it  when  spoken,  that  a  law  as 
social  value  includes  all  the  interpretations  and  applications 
given  to  it  by  the  judges  and  by  the  people,  etc.  Though 
even  here  we  find  the  marked  practical  tendency  to  limit  the 
object  to  one  system,  to  purify  grammatically  the  use  of  the 
word,  to  prescribe  exact  limits  to  the  interpretation  of  the  law; 
but  the  scientist  is  able  to  distinguish  the  concrete  social 
reality  itself  from  these  efforts  of  practical  schematization. 
But  it  is  much  more  difiicult  to  get  rid  of  the  inveterate 
naturahstic  presuppositions  and  to  realize  that  not  only  a 
material  product  of  human  industry,  but  any  natural  object 
whatever,  a  tree,  a  lake,  is  in  its  concreteness  a  historical 
object,  possesses  all  the  variations  of  content  and  meaning 
which  are  given  to  it,  not  only  by  physics,  chemistry,  botany, 
geology,  but  also  by  ordinary  human  observation,  by  the 
aesthetic  view  of  the  painter,  by  the  practical  standpoint  of 
the  technician,  even  by  the  attitude  of  the  tramp  who  searches 
for  the  shade  of  the  tree  or  takes  a  bath  in  the  lake.     And  yet 


96  CULTURAL  REALITY 

we  must  be  aware  that  if  we  once  begin  to  qualify  some  of 
these  contents  and  meanings  as  subjective  and  deny  that  they 
belong  to  the  objects  themselves,  we  cannot  stop  with  the 
characters  ascribed  to  the  objects  by  the  tramp  or  the  painter, 
but  must  qualify  as  also  subjective  the  properties  which  the 
physicist  and  geologist  find  in  these  objects.  Then  the 
whole  discussion  begins  over  again,  for  if  everything  is  sub- 
jective, the  problem  how  objects  are  constructed  is  not  solved, 
but  merely  transported  into  the  subject,  expressed  in  terms  of 
the  subject;  and  this,  as  we  shall  see  at  a  later  point,  makes 
its  rational  solution  impossible. 

Of  course,  the  historical  object  is — must  be — full  of  con- 
tradictions, precisely  because  it  is  not  limited  in  its  existence 
to  a  single  rational  system.  These  contradictions  do  not 
destroy  its  reality,  for  no  one  of  these  variations  of  content  or 
meaning  belongs  to  it  absolutely,  constitutes  its  essence.  The 
ontological  principle  of  contradiction  has  been  worked  out  in 
application  to  the  object  within  one  limited  system,  and  does 
not  apply  at  all  to  the  concrete  historical  reality.  Whenever, 
therefore,  we  want  to  apply  it  to  a  certain  object,  we  must 
first  define  with  precision  the  Umits  within  which  the  object 
is  taken,  the  standpoint  from  which  its  content  is  determined 
and  the  objects  with  regard  to  which  its  meaning  is  fixed. 

But,  though  the  concept  of  subjective  copies,  of  repre- 
sentations, as  distinct  from  and  opposed  to  the  object  must  be 
entirely  excluded  from  the  theory  of  concrete  empirical  reality, 
there  remains  a  very  real  problem:  how  far  the  variations 
which  a  historical  object  undergoes  in  various  complexes 
affect  the  unity  of  this  object,  and  on  the  other  hand,  how  far 
a  similarity  of  two  objects  in  different  complexes  is  a  ground 
for  considering  these  objects  as  one.  The  problem  has 
evidently  no  direct  connection  with  the  variety  of  individual 
experiences,  for  the  various  systems  may  be  realized  either  by 
different  individuals  or  groups  of  individuals,  or  by  the  same 
individual  or  group. 


EMPIRICAL  OBJECT  AND  HISTORICAL  REALITY  97 

It  is  clear  that  in  concrete  experience  no  absolute  dis- 
tinction between  the  one  and  the  many  can  be  established, 
that  within  wide  limits  the  variations  of  a  historical  object 
in  various  complexes  may  be  treated  either  as  included 
in  this  object  or  as  distinct,  self-existing  objects,  and  that 
the  matter  is  merely  one  of  degree  of  difference  or  similarity. 
Thus,  take  a  word.  In  what  measure  can  we  treat  the 
variations  of  content  and  meaning  which  the  word  under- 
goes by  being  pronounced  or  written  many  times  in  many 
different  actual  complexes,  as  constituting  different  words, 
and  in  what  measure  as  being  merely  variations  of  one 
and  the  same  word  ?  This  depends,  first  of  all,  on  what 
we  should  consider  to  be  different  complexes  instead  of  mere 
varying  actualizations  of  one  complex.  We  know  that, 
because  of  the  irrational  character  of  concrete  personalities,  a 
complex  is  seldom,  if  ever,  in  fact  exactly  and  fully  reproduced, 
though  it  should  be  possible  to  reproduce  it  indefinitely  by 
virtue  of  its  own  objective  nature.  Before  we  take  into 
account  the  rational  organization  of  a  complex,  which  makes 
of  it  a  system,  we  have  no  definite  criteria  permitting  us  to 
distinguish  objectively  and  absolutely  the  reproduction  of 
a  complex  from  the  production  of  a  new  complex,  and  in  any 
particular  case  our  distinction  must  be,  viewed  from  the 
rational  standpoint,  arbitrary,  though  usually  it  has  a  partial 
empirical  justification  in  the  consciousness,  more  or  less  clear, 
which  the  individual  or  group  has  of  producing  a  new  or  of 
reproducing  an  old  complex.  Thus,  the  mispronunciations, 
misspellings,  or  misunderstandings  of  a  word  by  individuals 
who  are  learning  how  to  use  it  in  a  certain  formerly  fijced, 
objective  connection  will  normally  not  be  considered  as  new 
determinations  of  this  word  in  new  complexes,  but  as  inade- 
quate reproductions  of  its  determination  in  an  old  complex 
which  from  the  standpoint  of  concrete  experience  are,  of 
course,  objectively  real,  but  from  the  special  philological 
standpoint  are  treated  as  half-subjective.     In  so  far  as  the 


gS  CULTURAL  REALITY 

complex  is  thus  one,  though  many  times  actuahzed,  the 
word  is  evidently  also  one,  both  from  the  standpoint  of 
this  complex  and  from  the  historical  standpoint;  the  prob- 
lem of  unity  and  multiplicity  does  not  exist.  Suppose  now 
that  the  content  of  the  word  is  widely  and  permanently 
differentiated  by  this  word's  being  differently  pronounced 
in  different  provincial  dialects,  or  that  its  meaning  is  widely 
and  permanently  differentiated  by  being  applied  to  different 
classes  of  contents,  or  that  both  its  content  and  its  mean- 
ing become  modified  by  its  passing  into  a  different  language. 
In  the  first  two  cases  we  shall  probably,  and  certainly  in 
the  latter  case,  assume  that  the  word  has  been  differ- 
entiated objectively  by  being  introduced  into  different  com- 
plexes. How  far,  up  to  what  liniits,  then,  shall  we  treat 
the  word  as  one  ?  When  shall  we  begin  to  consider  it  as 
many  ?  Evidently,  from  the  empirical  standpoint,  regard- 
ing this  word  as  a  historical  object,  we  can  assign  it  no 
limits  whatever.  The  distinction  is  here  not  arbitrary,  but 
free.  We  can  treat  the  word  as  one  in  spite  of  the  most 
far-reaching  objective  variations  it  has  undergone,  provided 
we  then  take  these  variations  into  account;  we  can  treat 
each  of  these  variations  as  a  different  word,  provided  we  then 
take  into  account  the  fact  that  they  do  have  a  certain  content 
and  meaning  in  common  and  that  they  are  thus  variations 
of  one  and  the  same  word ;  or  we  can  divide  the  variations  into 
several  groups,  according  to  the  degrees  of  difference,  and  take 
the  word  as  one  within  each  such  group  only  and  as  distinct 
from  group  to  group,  provided  we  then  take  into  account  not 
only  the  objective  variations  which  each  such  word  undergoes 
within  its  group,  but  also  the  common  ground  by  which  all 
these  words  together  are  characterized. 

Similar  examples  are  offered  in  the  field  of  mythology. 
We  exclude  again  as  irrelevant  those  variations  which  we 
arbitrarily  agree  to  treat  as  half-subjective,  due  to  imperfect 
individual  reproductions  of  a  complex.     When  shall  we  treat 


EMPIRICAL  OBJECT  AND  HISTORICAL  REALITY  99 

divinities  which  have  more  or  less  similar  contents  and  mean- 
ings in  different  complexes  produced  by  different  groups  or 
within  the  same  group,  as  the  same  or  as  different  mythological 
beings  ?  Here  again  the  choice  is  free  and  in  each  particular 
case  conditioned  only  by  the  question  whether  it  is  the  common 
or  the  varying  contents  and  meanings  which  seem  empirically 
more  important  from  the  standpoint  of  the  total  concrete 
historical  domain  with  which  we  are  dealing.  Thus,  we  shall 
usually  consider  the  Greek  Zeus  as  one  divinity  in  spite  of 
the  variations  of  content  and  meaning  which  we  find  between 
the  Zeus  of  Dodona  and  the  Zeus  of  Olympia,  between  the 
Zeus  of  Homer  and  the  one  of  Hesiod,  whereas  we  shall 
probably  treat  the  Greek  Zeus  and  the  Roman  Jupiter  as  two 
divinities  in  spite  of  their  possible  common  origin  and  of  the 
well-known  later  syncretism ;  but  we  are  free  in  both  cases  to 
take  a  different  standpoint  provided  we  always  take  into 
account  both  the  diversity  included  under  the  assumed  unity 
and  the  similarity  existing  above  the  assumed  multiplicity. 

Thus,  in  so  far  as  determined  within  one  complex  as  one 
object,  a  historical  object  is  certainly  and  indubitably  one,  in 
spite  of  the  various  half-subjective  reproductions  of  this 
complex ;  but  as  variously  determined  in  objectively  different 
complexes,  it  may  be  either  one  or  many,  we  are  free  to  treat 
it  either  way.  There  are,  however,  numerous  cases  in  which 
this  freedom  is  limited  and  the  problem  complicated  by  the 
fact  that  when  we  take  a  certain  content  and  meaning  as 
object-matter  of  historical  reflection,  we  may  find  that  in 
one  complex  it  is  explicitly  and  objectively  qualified  as  one 
object,  whereas  within  some  other  complex  it  may  be  the 
common  ground  of  many  objects.  Such  is  the  case  whenever 
an  object,  determined  as  one  in  its  content  and  meaning 
within  a  certain  complex,  becomes  within  another  complex 
diversified  by  being  materially  multiplied  in  many  physical 
copies,  or  when,  on  the  contrary,  objects  which  within  one 
complex  are  determined  as  materially  multiple  and  distinct 


lOO  CULTURAL  REALITY 

are  taken  within  another  complex  with  regard  to  their  common 
content  and  meaning  as  one  object.  Examples  of  an  objective 
multiplication  within  a  new  complex  of  an  object  originally 
one  abound  in  the  sphere  of  industry:  an  artist  produces  a 
model  of  a  table  or  a  technician  a  model  of  an  instrument,  and 
each  of  these  viewed  from  the  standpoint  of  applied  art  or  of 
technical  invention  is  and  remains  one  object,  however  many 
copies  are  made;  but  from  the  standpoint  of  industrial 
production,  of  economical  exchange,  of  spatial  localization, 
in  the  complexes  of  the  factory  manager,  of  the  dealer,  of  the 
casual  observer  who  sees  many  similar  tables  or  instruments 
side  by  side,  each  of  these  copies  counts  as  a  distinct  object. 
Examples  of  an  objective  unification  of  objects  originally 
many  into  one  are  frequent  in  hedonistic,  aesthetic,  scientific, 
and  similar  activities.  Thus,  many  spatially  and  economically 
distinct  bottles  of  wine  of  a  certain  vintage  and  year  are  for 
the  gastronomer  one  hedonistic  value  in  the  sense  that  the 
distinct  bottles  do  not  count  hedonistically  as  separately 
quaUfied  values,  but  each  and  all  are  *'the  wine  of  this  vintage 
and  year."  The  artist  who  makes  a  flower  the  object-matter 
of  aesthetic  stylization  is  not  concerned  with  the  material 
multiplicity  of  flowers  of  this  species;  his  stylization  bears 
on  each  and  all  of  them:  the  flower  of  this  species  is  his 
aesthetic  value.  The  scientific  study  of  an  object  as  typical 
representative  of  a  class  ignores  the  multiplicity  of  this  object 
in  the  physical  world;  the  object  is  one  and  not  many  with 
regard  to  its  scientifically  determinable  essence. 

The  common-sense  realistic  solution  of  the  problem  would 
evidently  consist  in  denying  any  real  and  objective  community 
between  the  one  object — the  model  of  the  instrument,  the 
aesthetic  stylization  of  the  flower,  the  scientific  concept — 
and  the  multiple  objects — the  copies  of  the  model,  natural 
flowers,  particular  things  on  which  the  concept  bears.  From 
this  standpoint  we  would  have  simply  many  distinct  objects, 
copies  of  the  instrument,  plus  a  model,  many  natural  flowers 


EMPIRICAL  OBJECT  AND  HISTORICAL  REALITY  lOi 

plus  an  aesthetic  stylization,  many  particular  things  plus  a 
general  concept;  there  would  be  no  objective  unity  either 
between  each  copy  and  other  copies  or  between  the  copies 
and  the  model,  no  objective  unity  between  each  specimen  of 
the  natural  flower  and  other  specimens,  or  between  the  natural 
specimens  and  the  artistic  stylization.  Objective  absolute 
idealism,  on  the  contrary,  would  sacrifice  the  plurality  to 
unity  and  say  there  is  only  one  essence  of  the  instruments,  one 
essence  of  the  flowers,  one  essence  of  the  particular  things 
which  science  studies,  and  that  this  essence  is  identical  in  the 
model  and  the  copies,  in  the  natural  flowers  and  the  aesthetic 
stylization,  in  the  particular  things  and  the  general  concept: 
multipHcity  would  be  treated  as  an  illusion,  or  an  accident, 
or  a  /xt)  6v. 

But  neither  unity  can  be  sacrificed  to  multiplicity  nor 
multiplicity  to  unity  from  the  standpoint  of  concrete  historical 
reality,  because  empirically  we  follow  both  the  formation  of 
many  objects  from  one  and  the  formation  of  one  from  many 
and  see  the  continuity  between  the  one  and  the  many,  and 
because  unity  and  multiplicity  exist  for  us  empirically  only 
so  far  as  actually  reconstructible.  When  one  model  of  a  table 
is  objectively  reproduced  many  times,  this  reproduction  is  an 
empirical  development,  which  we  see  going  on;  we  see  how 
the  same  given  content  and  meaning  become  embodied  in 
many  objects;  and  this  objective  reproduction  is  empirically 
real,  has  for  us  an  actual  objective  character  only  because 
its  primary  ground  is  this  one  content  and  meaning  developed 
in  various  complexes.  A  new  object  is  produced  only  when  a 
content  is  objectivated  and  determined  in  a  new  complex; 
thus,  each  new  copy  of  a  certain  model  table  is  a  separate 
table,  a  new  object  distinct  from  other  similar  tables,  only 
because  in  the  course  of  its  construction  it  becomes  an  element 
of  a  separate  practical  complex.  The  fact  that  when  once 
constructed  it  has  a  separate  history  of  its  own,  is  incorporated 
into  various  complexes  different  from  those  of  similar  objects, 


I02  CULTURAL  REALITY 

is  put  into  a  different  room,  turned  to  a  somewhat  different 
use,  belongs  to  different  individuals,  etc.,  increases  its  reality 
as  a  separate  object,  but  without  destroying  the  community  of 
content  and  meaning  with  other  similar  objects  which  it 
originally  possessed.  Each  new  table  is  and  remains  a  mere 
variation  of  the  same  model,  so  that  all  such  tables  can  be 
treated  as  one  concrete  historical  object  existing  in  many 
increasingly  real  variations.  When,  now,  many  such  speci- 
mens are  taken  together  in  one  complex,  as  distinct  objects, 
and  determined  with  regard  to  one  another  as  many,  this 
determination  is  simply  a  new  character  added  to  this  concrete 
historical  object,  the  one  table  realizing  itself  in  the  many 
increasingly  real  variations,  which  in  addition  to  its  original 
historical  unity  and  its  gradually  increasing  historical  diversity 
acquires  also  the  characteristic  of  being  objectively  a  physical 
multiphcity  of  similar  things.  This  characteristic  does  not 
destroy  its  unity;  on  the  contrary,  it  is  possible  only  because 
the  object  is  still  one  and  all  the  physical  things  have  therefore 
a  common  content  and  meaning;  it  is  only  superadded  to  the 
original  unity.  Nor  does  it  create  the  multiphcity;  on  the 
contrary,  the  tables  can  be  treated  as  many  in  one  complex 
only  because  they  have  been  already  diversified  in  many 
different  complexes.  This  diversity  is  itself  objectivated  in 
this  one  complex  as  an  objective  multiplicity  of  the  objects 
incorporated  into  this  complex.  In  this  way  the  historical 
object,  the  table  of  a  certain  style,  which  was  already  objec- 
tively one  in  the  aesthetic  complex  of  the  artist  who  produced 
the  model,  in  the  economic  complex  of  the  business  man 
who  paid  for  this  model,  and  in  the  intellectual  complex  of  the 
historian  of  appUed  art  who  studied  it,  becomes  also  objec- 
tively many  in  the  technical  or  spatial  complex  in  which  the 
same  content  and  meaning  is  characterized  as  inherent  in  many 
physical  things.  The  same  table,  the  same  historical  object, 
with  its  original  content  and  meaning,  with  the  variations  of 
this  content  and  meaning  in  many  dift'erent  complexes,  is  thus 


EMPIRICAL  OBJECT  AND  HISTORICAL  REALITY  103 

objectively  characterized  as  one  in  some  complexes,  as  many 
in  other  complexes.  Therefore,  from  the  empirical  stand- 
point, this  table,  this  historical  object,  is  both  one  and  many. 

This  is  true  likewise  when  it  is  the  unity  which  is 
actually  superadded  to  an  original  plurality.  The  gastron- 
omer who  quahfies  the  many  bottles  of  wine  as  one  value  in 
his  hedonistic  complex,  the  artist  who  sees  one  aesthetic  value 
in  the  many  natural  individuals  of  a  species  of  flowers  and 
from  the  standpoint  of  an  aesthetic  complex  produces  one 
stylization  of  the  many  flowers,  the  scientist  who  from  the 
standpoint  of  a  theoretic  complex  finds  one  essence  in  many 
particular  things,  each  of  them  creates  q,n  objective  unity  on 
the  ground  of  a  similarity  of  content  and  meaning  which 
existed  originally  in  many  more  or  less  different  objects.  One 
object — the  hedonistic  value,  the  aesthetic  stylization,  the 
scientific  idea — is  the  result  of  the  incorporation  by  each  of 
the  many  pre-existing  objects  into  a  new  complex  in  which 
they  are  objectively  determined  not  as  many,  but  as  one. 
From  this  moment  the  many  historical  objects  are  syncretized 
into  one  historical  object,  and  this  new  object,  the  product  of 
this  syncretism,  is  both  many  and  one:  many  in  so  far  as  each 
object  of  the  original  plurality  is  already  qualified  in  some 
complex  as  a  distinct  thing — as  a  separate  bottle  of  wine 
among  other  bottles  in  a  cave,  a  separate  flower  among  other 
flowers  in  a  garden;  one  in  so  far  as  the  new  objective  deter- 
mination in  the  hedonistic,  aesthetic,  scientific  complex 
qualifies  the  original  plurality  as  one  with  regard  to  its  common 
content  and  meaning. 

This,  however,  does  not  imply,  as  Platonism  presupposes, 
that  in  such  cases  it  is  an  original  unity  of  essence  which 
becomes  merely  reconstructed  by  reflection.  The  fact  that 
many  objects  have  a  more  or  less  similar  content  and  meaning 
does  not  necessarily  imply  that  there  was  some  one  original 
object  from  which  these  objects  have  actually  developed  as 
its  variations.     In  some  cases  there  may  have  been  such  an 


I04  CULTURAL  REALITY 

original  object,  but  we  can  know  this  only  if  we  actually  find 
this  object  in  the  cultural  past.  When  we  find  many  industrial 
objects  with  a  similar  content  and  meaning  we  can  usually 
discover  or  presuppose  the  technician's  model  which  served 
as  a  common  basis  for  the  manufacture  of  all.  The  common 
content  and  meaning  of  some  species  of  flowers  can  be  traced 
back  to  a  common  origin,  but  the  origin  of  most  species  of 
flowers  as  of  most  natural  objects  is  lost  in  the  pre-cultural 
past  and  we  cannot  be  certain  that  they  are  all  variations  of 
a  primary  unit.  Whether  they  are  or  not  is  irrelevant  from 
the  standpoint  of  our  present  problem.  For,  even  when  the 
multiple  objects  which  the  hedonist,  the  artist,  the  scientist, 
unifies  by  determining  them  as  one,  were  actually  produced  by 
a  differentiation  of  one  primary  object,  the  unity  produced  is 
from  the  hedonistic,  aesthetic,  or  scientific  standpoint  a  new 
unity,  not  the  reproduction  of  the  old  unity,  because  the  one 
object — the  hedonistic  value,  the  aesthetic  stylization,  the 
scientific  idea — to  which  this  new  unity  is  due  is  not  the  same 
as  the  old  original  object  which  was  diversified  and  multiplied. 
For  instance,  the  concept  "Louis  XVI  table,"  by  which  the 
historian  of  applied  art  gives  a  unity  to  the  multiplicity  of 
materially  existing  tables  which  have  certain  common  aes- 
thetic features  developed  under  the  reign  of  Louis  XVI,  is 
not  the  same  object  as  the  original  model  from  which  the 
various  and  materially  multiple  Louis  XVI  tables  have 
developed.  On  the  other  hand,  even  when  the  many  given 
objects  syncretized  into  one  by  an  aesthetic  stylization  or  a 
scientific  idea  were  distinct  objects  from  their  very  beginning, 
their  newly  acquired  unity  is  nevertheless  objective  and  real, 
though  it  does  not  destroy  their  plurality,  and  we  can  treat 
them,  because  of  this  syncretism,  as  a  concrete  historical  object 
which  is  both  one  and  many  in  its  real  nature. 

THE   EXTENSION   OF   HISTORICAL   OBJECTS 

The  historical  object  can  be  defined,  as  we  have  seen,  as  a 
concrete  irrational  synthesis  of  all  those  special,  more  or  less 


EMPIRICAL  OBJECT  AND  HISTORICAL  REALITY  105 

rational  objects  which  constitute  objective  variations  of  it 
in  various  limited  complexes.  But  this  definition  is  still 
incomplete,  for  the  historical  object  is  not  reducible  to  a  mere 
sum  of  its  objective  variations.  Indeed,  the  possibihty  of 
empirically  ascertaining  the  existence  of  the  historical  object, 
as  of  something  more  than  any  particular  rationally  deter- 
mined object,  depends  upon  our  being  conscious  that  the  given 
object,  as  determined  within  one  limited  complex,  is  not  the 
full  concrete  object,  that  it  belongs  or  may  belong  also  to 
other  complexes  where  it  is  differently  determined.  This 
consciousness  is  due,  as  we  have  seen,  to  the  imperfect  objec- 
tivity and  rationality  of  our  personalities,  to  the  fact  that 
actuality  is  not  a  systematic,  objective  development  of  a 
perfectly  rational  reality,  but  an  active,  progressive  objectiva- 
tion  and  rationalization  of  data  accompanied  by  a  passive 
subjectivation  of  rational  objects,  so  that  the  same  object 
may  be  given  in  the  course  of  subjectivation  with  the  deter- 
minations which  it  has  received  in  one  complex,  and  in  the 
course  of  subsequent  objectivation  acquire  different  determina- 
tions by  being  incorporated  into  another  complex;  or  vice 
versa,  after  having  been  objectivated  in  one  complex,  it  may 
return  and  become  subjectivated  as  an  element  of  a  different 
complex.  The  rational  determination  of  an  object  within 
any  one  limited  system  is  the  one-sided  static  result  of  this 
two-sided  dynamic  development.  And  since  the  latter  is 
essential  in  order  to  have  a  historical  object  empirically  given 
as  such,  it  is  not  enough  to  define  the  historical  object  from  the 
standpoint  of  the  objective  results  of  actuality  as  determined 
in  all  the  objective  complexes  to  which  it  belongs:  it  is 
indispensable  to  supplement  this  definition  by  studying  the 
historical  object  from  the  standpoint  of  actuality  itself,  by 
characterizing  it  with  regard  to  this  double  process  of  sub- 
jectivation and  objectivation,  by  virtue  of  which  it  is  not  a 
mere  philosophical  construction,  but  an  empirical  object. 

By  becoming  a  datum  in  the  course  of  subjectivation,  every 
empirical  object,  no  matter  what  complexes  it  belongs  to, 


lo6  CULTURAL  REALITY 

becomes  dynamically  attracted,  as  we  may  say  for  the  lack  of 
any  better  term,  toward  the  here.  In  the  course  of  objectiva- 
tion,  on  the  other  hand,  whatever  may  be  the  complex  into 
which  the  datum  while  becoming  an  object  is  being  incor- 
porated, this  incorporation  is  progressing  from  the  here.  We 
shall  call  the  sphere  of  experience  of  an  individual  the  totality 
of  objects  which  are,  have  been,  or  will  be  attracted  toward 
this  individual's  here,  and  the  sphere  of  reflection  of  an  individ- 
ual the  totalit}^  of  the  objects  which  are,  have  been,  or  will  be 
reconstructed  from  this  individual's  here. 

If  empirical  contents  were  purely  actual,  they  would  be 
limited,  both  as  data  and  as  objects,  to  an  individual's  spheres 
of  experience  and  of  reflection.  If,  on  the  contrary,  reality 
were  purely  trans-actual,  it  would  transcend  absolutely  in  its 
objectivity  the  individual's  sphere  of  reflection,  and  only  its 
subjective  copies  would  come  into  the  individual's  sphere  of 
experience.  But  concrete  reality  is  both  actual  and  trans- 
actual:  actual  in  so  far  as  actually  subjectivated  and  objec- 
tivated,  trans-actual  in  so  far  as  belonging  to  more  or  less 
rationally  organized  complexes.  As  long  as  we  treat  an  object 
as  limited  in  its  existence  to  one  complex,  we  can  neglect  its 
dependence  on  individual  spheres  of  experience  and  reflection, 
for  in  dealing  with  a  ready  objective  complex  we  do  not  need 
to  take  into  account  the  fact  that  this  complex  could  not  be  a 
part  of  empirical  reality,  if  it  were  not  constructed  and  recon- 
structed in  actual  reflection,  and  that  it  could  not  be 
reconstructed  in  actual  reflection  if  all  its  elements  were  not 
given  in  actual  experience.  But  we  must  take  this  fact  into 
account  in  dealing  with  the  concrete  historical  object,  for  its 
existence  can  be  ascertained  only  in  the  course  of  its  objectiva- 
tion  and  subjectivation  in  many  complexes.  The  historical 
object  therefore  depends  on  the  individual's  spheres  of  experi- 
ence and  of  reflection :  its  being  attracted  as  datum  toward  the 
here  and  its  being  reconstructed  as  object  from  the  here  are 
features  essential  to  its  characterization  as  an  actual  object. 


EMPIRICAL  OBJECT  AND  HISTORICAL  REALITY  107 

Since,  however,  the  historical  object  at  the  same  time 
belongs  to  objective  complexes,  as  an  element  in  these  com- 
plexes it  is  trans-actual  and  thus  transcends  any  particular 
individual's  spheres  of  experience  and  of  reflection.  This 
transcendence  can,  of  course,  manifest  itself  empirically  only 
in  some  actuahty,  which  must  be  the  actuality  of  some  other 
individual.  The  historical  object  as  actual  must  belong  to 
some  individual's  sphere  of  experience  and  reflection,  but  as 
element  of  trans-actual  complexes  it  enters,  simultaneously 
or  successively,  into  the  spheres  of  experience  of  all  the 
individuals  who  subjectivate  it  as  a  datum  from  any  of  these 
complexes,  and  into  the  spheres  of  reflection  of  all  the  individ- 
uals who  reincorporate  it  as  object  into  any  of  these  complexes. 
In  other  words,  though  it  is  essential  for  the  historical  object 
as  actual  object  to  be  an  element  of  some  individual's  sphere 
of  experience  and  sphere  of  reflection,  it  is  equally  essential 
for  it  not  to  be  limited  to  the  spheres  of  experience  and  of 
reflection  of  any  individual,  but  to  belong — or  at  least  be  able 
to  belong — to  the  spheres  of  experience  and  reflection  of  all 
other  individuals  who  have  or  will  experience  and  reproduce  it 
in  any  connection.  It  depends  in  some  measure  for  its  actual 
empirical  existence  on  each  personality  which  experiences  and 
reconstructs  it,  but  it  does  not  depend  exclusively  on  any 
particular  personality  or  on  any  hmited  number  of  person- 
alities. 

Since  each  individual  sphere  of  experience  and  sphere  of 
reflection  is  centered  around  a  unique  personal  here,  the 
historical  object,  which  can  belong  to  many  individual 
spheres  of  experience  and  reflection,  can  extend  empirically 
and  dynamicafly  over  many  here's,  both  in  so  far  as  it  has 
been  or  will  be  actually  subjectivated  as  a  datum  and  in  so 
far  as  it  has  been  or  will  be  actually  objectivated  as  an  element 
of  empirical  complexes.  And  because,  on  the  other  hand, 
it  is  not  only  an  actual  datum,  but  also  a  trans-actual  object, 
its  empirical  and  dynamic  determination  with  regard  to  a 


108  CULTURAL  REALITY 

here  is  not  exclusively  limited  to  the  moment  when  it  is 
actually  experienced  or  reproduced  by  the  individual;  once 
reproduced  as  an  object  in  an  individual's  spheres  of  experience 
and  reflection,  it  belongs  to  them  forever,  because  it  has 
acquired  an  objective  and  empirical  existence  for  this  individ- 
ual and  can  be  indefinitely  experienced  by  him  and  reproduced 
by  him  as  part  of  his  empirical  world,  conditioning  thus  more 
or  less  the  future  active  and  passive  evolution  of  his  personal- 
ity. From  this  it  follows  that  the  extension  of  the  historical 
object  over  many  here's  is  not  a  mere  passing  of  this  object 
from  one  here  to  another,  as  it  is  experienced  or  reconstructed 
now  by  one  individual  or  another,  but  a  permanent  extensive 
existence  of  this  object,  which  permits  it  to  become  simul- 
taneously given  at  any  moment  by  approaching  to  many 
unique  here's,  or  to  be  simultaneously  reproduced  at  any 
moment  from  many  unique  here's,  or  to  be  at  the  same  time 
given  at  some  here's  as  datum  and  reproduced  from  other 
here's  as  object. 

Since  every  real  object  or  group  of  objects  either  is  or  can 
be  experienced  and  reproduced  by  many  individuals,  every 
part  of  the  empirical  objective  reality  possesses  in  some 
degree  this  concrete  dynamic  extension,  exists  or  can  exist 
in  many  personal  spheres  of  experience  and  reflection,  extends 
over  many  here's.  Empirical  objective  reality  is  a  multi- 
pHcity  of  extensive  objects — extensive  in  this  concrete  and 
empirical  sense  of  the  term ;  and  the  extension  of  the  historical 
world  is  the  totality  of  the  extensions  of  the  historical  objects 
of  which  it  is  composed.  This  concrete  extension  is  the 
primary,  the  fundamental  objective  and  empirical  extension. 
The  personal  centraHzation  of  data  around  a  unique  individual 
here  is  evidently  not  sufficient  to  produce  alone  objective 
extension,  though  it  is  one  of  its  essential  conditions.  On  the 
other  hand,  the  rational  order  of  objects  in  a  complex  is  not 
alone  sufficient  to  make  these  objects  or  the  complex  itself 
empirically   extended,   existing   in   many   here's,    for    these 


EMPIRICAL  OBJECT  AND  HISTORICAL  REALITY  109 

objects  must  be  actually  experienced,  the  complex  actually 
reproduced  in  order  to  exist  at  any  here  at  all.  It  needs  both 
a  personal  centralization  of  data  around  a  here  and  an  imper- 
sonal organization  of  objects  in  complexes  because  of  which 
they  can  empirically  exist  at  many  here's,  in  order  to  have 
objective  extension. 

We  must  clearly  realize  that  the  extension  of  reality  is  not 
deducible  from  the  fact  that  spatial  characters,  that  is  lines, 
surfaces,  three-dimensional  bodies,  and  interstices  between 
bodies,  are  included  within  some  empirical  data,  together  with 
other  characters.  For,  as  empirically  given,  the  data  possess- 
ing those  characters  are  not  parts  of  an  objective  extension  but 
elements  of  the  concrete  course  of  personal  experience  and 
reflection,  chaotically  intermingled  with  other  data  which  do 
not  possess  spatial  characters,  and  following  one  another  in 
actuahty  without  any  spatial  order.  If  now  such  contents 
including  spatial  characters  become  incorporated  into  a 
complex  in  which  they  are  reciprocally  determined  as  spatial 
objects,  such  a  spatial  organization  is  empirically  not  a  part 
of  a  general  spatial  extension,  but  a  part  of  the  concrete  and 
chaotic  historical  plurality  of  complexes  among  which  some 
may  be  spatially  organized,  others  not,  and  all  of  which  are 
parts  of  the  same  empirical  extension  only  in  so  far  as  they 
are  experienced  and  reproduced  by  the  same  group  of  individ- 
uals, belong  to  the  same  multiple  spheres  of  individual  expe- 
rience and  individual  reflection.  The  spatial  determination 
which  an  object  may  receive  in  a  spatially  organized  complex 
is  only  one  of  many  determinations  which  it  may  receive  in 
other  complexes;  and  thus,  the  same  concrete  historical  object 
may  be  spatial  and  non-spatial  at  the  same  time,  without  its 
spatiality  being  any  more  essential  to  it  than  its  non-spatiality ; 
whereas,  both  as  spatial  and  non-spatial  it  must  be  con- 
cretely extended,  given  at  many  here's.  We  shall  see  later 
on  how  the  conception  of  a  general  objective  and  rational 
space  including  reahty  is  constructed.     It  is  evidently  only  a 


no  CULTURAL  REALITY 

rational  unification  and  generalization  of  one  particular  type 
of  rational  determination  which  certain  objects  receive  by 
being  incorporated  into  one  specific  kind  of  complexes,  the 
spatially  organized  complexes.  And  such  a  rational  unifica- 
tion and  generalization  itself  presupposes  this  primary, 
irrational,  concrete  extension  of  historical  reality  which  we  are 
discussing  now.  For  it  is  possible  to  treat  from  a  certain 
rational  standpoint  all  the  spatially  organized  complexes  as 
parts  of  one  spatial  organization  only  because  each  and  all 
of  these  complexes  are  concretely  extended,  because  they 
exist  in  many  individual  spheres  of  experience  and  reflection, 
because  the  spatial  organization  of  each  of  them  and  the 
spatial  connection  between  them  can  be  taken  as  independent 
of  each  individual's  particular  here  separately.  The  sub- 
stitution of  a  common  space  in  which  objects  are  supposed 
localized  for  the  concrete  extension  over  which  objects 
actually  spread  is  thus  the  substitution  of  a  certain  particular 
rational  order  of  objects  viewed  with  regard  to  certain  particu- 
lar determinations  and  taken  within  a  special  class  of  systems, 
for  a  universal  empirical  character  which  all  objects  possess 
in  concrete  experience,  whatever  determinations  they  may 
have  and  to  whatever  systems  they  may  belong,  a  character, 
moreover,  which  pertains  to  all  systems  as  well  as  to  their 
elements.  It  was,  therefore,  one  of  the  greatest  errors  ever 
committed  in  the  history  of  philosophy  for  realism  to  identify 
spatiality  with  concrete  empirical  extension  and  conceive 
concrete  objects  as  included  within  space,  for  this  space  is  only 
one  of  many  types  of  rational  organization  of  the  objects  which 
are  found  in  the  concretely  and  irrationally  extended  historical 
world. 

In  the  light  of  naturaHstic  prepossessions  our  theory  must 
seem  strange,  though  as  a  matter  of  fact,  scientists  when 
deahng  with  cultural  reality  do  implicitly  ascribe  to  many 
historical  objects  the  character  of  extensiveness  as  herein 
described.     They  are  forced  to  speak  of  myths  and  mores,  of 


EMPIRICAL  OBJECT  AND  HISTORICAL  REALITY  ill 

language  and  social  institutions,  of  technical  devices  and 
economic  forms  as  existing  within  a  certain  extensive  do- 
main of  culture,  as  spreading  out  or  becoming  more  limited, 
passing  from  one  part  of  extension  to  another,  etc.  They 
are,  indeed,  under  the  influence  of  the  naturalistic  view, 
inclined  to  treat  these  expressions  as  mere  figures  of  speech 
and  if  asked  the  exact  meaning  of  them,  to  say  that  these 
objects  are  either  spatial  or  absolutely  inextensive  and  that 
by  ascribing  to  them  a  certain  cultural  extension  they  mean 
only  that  they  are  recognized  by  the  individuals  who  inhabit 
a  certain  geographical  territory.  This  concession  to  natural- 
ism not  only  forces  a  conception  based  upon  the  essential 
character  of  concrete  reality  to  yield  to  a  traditional  and 
narrow  view  based  on  a  certain  special  rational  reconstruction 
of  reahty,  but  sacrifices  the  only  methodical  viewpoint  which 
is  adequate  for  dealing  with  cultural  reality  in  its  historical 
concreteness. 

It  is  only  this  naturaUstic  tendency  of  thought  which  pre- 
vents historical  and  social  sciences  from  reaUzing  that  the 
spatiality  of  the  geographical  territory  inhabited  by  certain 
individuals  cannot  be  the  ground  of  the  extension  of  cultural 
values  as  given  to  these  individuals,  because  this  spatiality  is 
itself  possible,  can  be  itself  empirically  given  only  on  the 
ground  of  the  primary  extensive  character  which  conscious 
individuals  give  to  the  world  of  their  experience,  each  by 
subjectivating  around  his  personal  here  objects  which  are  also 
given  to  others  and  by  objectivating  them  from  his  personal 
here  in  various  systems  into  which  others  also  incorporate 
them  from  their  personal  here's.  The  geographical  territory 
with  its  spatial  extension  and  limitation  and  with  all  the 
spatial  things  that  it  includes,  among  them  the  bodies  of  the 
individuals  inhabiting  it,  the  earth  itself,  the  solar  system, 
the  entire  astronomical  "infinite"  space,  are  empirically 
possible  only  in  so  far  as  actually  given  and  empirically 
reconstructed    by   many   individuals    along   with    all    other 


112  CULTURAL  REALITY 

historical  objects,  with  myths  and  mores,  with  language  and 
social  institutions,  with  technical  devices  and  economical 
forms,  with  art  and  scientific  ideas,  as  parts  of  the  same 
general  world  of  empirical  reality.  Concretely,  from  the 
standpoint  of  full  empirical  reality,  they  are  included  within 
the  wider  extension  of  the  empirical  world  in  general  which 
abstractly,  from  the  standpoint  of  naturalistic  systematiza- 
tion,  they  seem  to  include.  Their  primary  and  fundamental 
concrete  extension  is  not  the  absolutely  objective  and  invari- 
able spatial  extension  with  which  astronomy  and  geography 
are  dealing,  but  the  general,  undetermined,  and  changing 
extension  of  empirical  objects  given  in  many  here^s,  to  many 
individuals;  and  they  could  not  even  acquire  for  us,  experien- 
cing individuals,  the  characters  of  spatiality,  which  from  the 
naturalistic  viewpoint  appear  as  so  important,  if  they  did  not 
possess  the  more  primary  character  of  empirical  extensiveness 
resulting  from  the  fact  of  their  being  given  to  many  of  us  at 
once.  We  shall  later  investigate  the  problem  of  the  relative 
validity  of  the  naturalistic  system  with  its  conception  of 
infinite  objective  space,  an  unlimited  number  of  material 
bodies  within  this  space,  etc.;  now,  on  the  ground  of  the 
formal  definition  of  historical  reality,  we  simply  state  that  the 
naturalistic  conception  of  an  objectively  spatial  world  does 
not  correspond  to  the  form  of  the  elementary  concrete  empiri- 
cal world;  it  is  valid  within  the  material  system,  whatever 
be  the  sphere  of  validity  of  the  material  system  itself,  but  valid 
nowhere  else. 

Of  course,  when  we  have  once  accepted  the  determination 
which  objects  possess  within  this  system,  we  must  also  accept 
the  form  of  spatiality  which  is  involved  in  this  determination 
and  exclude  all  that  disagrees  with  it  as  not  belonging  to 
reality  materially  defined.  Thus,  from  the  naturalistic 
standpoint  the  Notre  Dame  of  Paris  or  the  Rocky  Mountains 
are  material  things,  part  of  the  material  world,  absolutely 
localized  in  the  absolute  space — though  their  locahzation  is 


EMPIRICAL  OBJECT  AND  HISTORICAL  REALITY         113 

astronomically  relative,  it  is  absolute  geographically — and 
their  presence  outside  of  their  position  in  space,  in  the  here 
of  an  individual  whose  body  is  several  thousand  miles  removed 
from  them,  has  then  to  be  interpreted  not  as  their  actual 
presence,  but  as  the  presence  of  their  representations,  which, 
as  such,  do  not  belong  to  the  material  world.  But  the  empiri- 
cal existence  of  the  Notre  Dame  of  Paris  or  of  the  Rocky 
Mountains  is  not  limited  to  their  existence  as  material  things 
in  space;  they  exist  also  in  innumerable  other  complexes, 
hedonistic,  aesthetic,  economic,  pohtical,  theoretic,  rehgious, 
etc.,  and  their  contents  and  meanings  are  incomparably  richer 
than  those  ascribed  to  them  in  naturalistic  knowledge.  They 
are  material  objects,  but  they  are  also  much  else  besides. 
And  as  such  full  concrete  historical  objects,  they  are  not 
localized  in  space;  their  spatial  locahzation  is  just  a  certain 
particular  feature  added  to  the  many  other  features,  coexisting 
really  though  irrationally  with  non-spatial  characters,  even 
with  such  as  would,  if  the  concrete  reality  were  rational, 
exclude  spatiality,  as  for  instance,  the  characters  which  they 
acquire  by  being  analyzed  into  theoretic  ideas,  and  becoming 
thus  incorporated  into  various  systems  of  knowledge.  As 
historical  objects,  they  exist  at  once  and  really  wherever  and 
however  experienced;  they  spread  with  all  their  characters 
over  all  the  here's  where  they  have  been  experienced  and 
reconstructed,  and  will  probably  spread  farther  still,  when  new 
individuals  introduce  them  into  their  spheres  of  experience 
and  reflection.  When  the  character  of  spatial  locahzation 
is  added  to  their  other  characters,  it  does  not  change  at 
all  the  nature  of  their  primary  historical  extension,  for  it  must 
extend  itself,  it  must  spread  over  many  individual  here's 
in  order  to  be  neither  a  mere  personal  datum  nor  a  purely 
rational  construction  inaccessible  to  human  experience,  but  an 
objective  and  yet  empirical  feature  of  these  objects. 

The  problem  is  much  simpler  with  regard  to  the  immate- 
rial objects  to  which  naturaHsm,  by  contrast  with  material 


114  CULTURAL  REALITY 

objects,  has  denied  all  extension.  The  poem  or  the  scientific 
theory  are,  of  course,  outside  all  extension  in  the  rational 
determination  which  they  possess  as  elements  of  an  aesthetic 
or  theoretic  system;  but  they  are  not  merely  elements  of 
those  rational  systems  within  which  they  have  received  their 
aesthetic  or  theoretic  determination.  They  are  also  empirical, 
actually  accessible  objects,  and  as  such  cannot  be  experienced 
by  any  individual  otherwise  than  by  being  subjectivated  as 
data  with  reference  to  his  here,  or  reproduced  by  him  other- 
wise than  by  being  objectivated  from  his  here:  and  they  are 
incorporated  into  many  real  complexes,  hedonistic  and  eco- 
nomic, political  and  religious,  and  are  thus  concrete  historical 
objects  like  all  others.  Their  objective  empirical  existence  in 
the  cultural  world  depends,  as  much  as  the  existence  of  any 
material  or  social  object,  on  their  belonging  to  the  spheres 
of  experience  and  reflection  of  many  individuals,  on  their 
spreading  over  many  here^s:  they  could  have  no  historical 
importance  whatever  if  they  did  not  participate  in  the 
concrete  extension  of  the  historical  reahty,  but  were  either 
exclusively  and  absolutely  super-cultural  or  existed  only  within 
the  closed  receptacles  of  individual  consciousnesses.  Their 
extension  is,  therefore,  at  the  same  time  one  of  the  factors  and 
one  of  the  results  of  their  cultural  influence. 

THE   DURATION    OF   HISTORICAL   OBJECTS 

We  pass  now  to  the  problem  of  the  existence  of  historical 
objects  in  time.  On  grounds  similar  to  those  on  which  we 
have  excluded  absolute  space,  we  can  exclude  in  advance,  from 
the  definition  of  the  concrete  empirical  world,  the  idea  of  the 
absolute  pure  time,  without  beginning  or  end,  in  which 
objects  last  and  change  and  in  which  actuahty  itself  develops. 
Absolute  time,  even  as,  at  the  opposite  pole,  absolute  time- 
lessness,  is  a  specific  rational,  non-empirical  form  of  reahty, 
postulated  within  the  logical  limits  of  the  naturahstic  system 
of  objects;    what  these  limits  are  and  what  is  the  relative 


EMPIRICAL  OBJECT  AND  HISTORICAL  REALITY  115 

validity  of  the  conception  of  absolute  time,  are  later  problems. 
But  from  the  standpoint  of  concrete  experience,  it  is  clear  that 
absolute  time  together  with  the  naturahstic  system  itself  must 
be  constructed  and  reconstructed  in  actuality,  and  it  pre- 
supposes a  more  primary  and  concrete  objective  duration,  in 
the  same  way  as  absolute  space  presupposes  a  more  primary 
and  concrete  objective  extension.  The  starting-point  of  all 
duration  is  that  relative  and  limited  direction  in  time  and  of 
time  with  regard  to  the  individual  actual  now,  which  charac- 
terizes the  course  of  experience.  Objective  duration  can  be 
reached  from  this  starting-point  only  in  the  form  of  an 
empirical  unification  and  interpenetration  of  many  such 
relative  and  limited  dynamic  arrangements  of  individual 
spheres  of  experience  with  regard  to  the  now,  as  a  synthesis 
of  many  particular  durations  into  one  general  and  complex 
duration  with  one  future  and  one  past,  even  as  objective 
extension  can  be  reached  only  in  the  form  of  a  unification  and 
interpenetration  of  many  subjectively  hmited  extensions 
organized  with  regard  to  the  here.  And  the  objectivity  of 
duration,  in  the  same  way  as  the  objectivity  of  extension,  is 
a  formally  unavoidable  consequence  and  condition  of  the 
existence  of  the  concrete  empirical  objects  themselves. 
Because,  and  in  so  far  as,  the  object  by  being  incorporated 
into  a  complex  acquires  an  existence  independent  of  any 
particular  individual  now,  it  must  be  able  to  be  given  at  many 
successive  now's,  and  this  is  the  only  form  in  which  the  object, 
while  transcending  in  duration  the  span  of  present  individual 
experience,  still  remains  an  empirical  object.  Since  historical 
objects  become  fully  real  by  being  incorporated  into  many 
complexes,  and  this  incorporation  goes  on  both  simultaneously 
and  successively,  duration  through  many  now's,  like  extension 
over  many  here's,  is  essential  for  the  empirical  reality  of  the 
historical  object.  The  successive  actualizations  of  the  his- 
torical object  are  directed  in  time,  are  following  one  another 
objectively    and    irreversibly,    and    thus   produce    objective 


Ii6  CULTURAL  REALITY 

duration,  precisely  and  only  because  they  constitute  a  progres- 
sive empirical  realization  of  one  and  the  same  object,  because 
each  of  them  influences  the  concrete  reality  of  this  object, 
leaves  an  objective  trace  after  it. 

Therefore  it  is  not  the  duration  of  objects  which  is  empiri- 
cally dependent  upon  the  duration  of  an  individual  person- 
ality, but  on  the  contrary,  the  individual  personality  acquires 
objective  empirical  duration  in  the  world  of  reality  because  of 
the  objective  duration  of  the  objects  which  individual  thought 
has  raised  to  trans-actual  existence.  Indeed,  if  we  leave  aside 
the  problem  of  the  duration  of  active  thought,  which  does  not 
belong  here,  and  take  the  individual  only  from  the  standpoint 
of  the  reaUty  which  he  experiences  and  reconstructs,  it  is  clear 
that  the  now  at  which  objects  are  given  as  data  and  from 
which  they  are  reconstructed  as  trans-actual  reahties  is  by 
itself  not  enough  to  qualify  a  personality  as  experiencing  and 
acting  continuously  within  a  certain  period  of  objective 
duration,  during,  before,  or  after  the  existence  of  certain  real 
objects  and  of  other  personalities.  The  now  by  itself  is 
unique,  is  not  a  part  of  duration;  the  successive  now^s  of  an 
individual,  viewed  from  the  standpoint  of  reflectively  analyzed 
experience,  can  be  distinguished  in  themselves,  but  only  by 
the  different  data  and  associations  of  data  present  at  each  of 
them;  and  if  the  now  were  not  a  ground  of  the  duration  of 
objective  reality,  we  could  assume  that  there  is  only  one  now 
for  each  individual  filled  out  successively  by  varying  data, 
just  as  there  is  only  one  here  for  each  individual;  the 
individual  would  be  thus  continuously  and  exclusively  in  a 
now,  actual  but  timeless,  like  the  God  of  Aristotle.  If  this 
is  not  so,  if  the  successive  now's  of  an  individual's  actuality 
do  objectively  differ  from  each  other  and  their  series  consti- 
tutes one  continuous  duration,  it  is  because  they  are  not  only 
the  wow's  of  the  individual  course  of  experience,  but  also  the 
wow's  of  historical  objects,  because  at  each  of  them  some 
object,  whose  existence  is  not  limited  to  this  individual's 


EMPIRICAL  OBJECT  AND  HISTORICAL  REALITY  117 

experience,  acquires  some  additional  real  determination  by 
being  now  incorporated  or  reincorporated  into  some  complex. 
The  same  object  has  acquired  some  other  real  determination 
at  a  now  of  some  other  individual  and  will  acquire  new  deter- 
minations at  the  wow's  of  others.  Because  each  individual 
now  is  thus  also  the  now  of  some  trans-individual  object,  it 
is  a  moment  of  a  trans-individual  duration.  And  since 
all  these  objects  constitute  the  chaos  of  concrete  historical 
reality,  the  whole  series  of  the  successive  now^s  of  an  individual 
is  a  component  of  the  total  concrete  duration  of  this  reality. 
The  individual's  Hfe  is  limited  in  duration  from  the  stand- 
point of  reality,  has  an  objective  beginning  and  end,  because 
his  participation  in  constructing  the  objective  duration  of 
historical  reality  is  limited,  because  various  concrete  historical 
objects  begin  at  a  certain  moment  of  their  objective  duration  to 
acquire  new  real  determinations  at  the  wow's  of  this  individual, 
and  later,  at  another  moment  of  their  objective  duration,  cease 
to  be  experienced  and  reproduced  at  this  individual's  now's. 
On  the  other  hand,  it  is  evident  that  the  duration  of  his- 
torical objects  as  empirical  objects  depends  in  turn  entirely 
on  their  being  experienced  and  reproduced  at  some  now's; 
it  is  logically  impossible  to  think  of  the  duration  of  a  concrete 
empirical  object  before  or  after  its  being  experienced  and 
reproduced  at  some  now  by  some  individual.  The  formal 
character  of  the  existence  of  historical  objects  as  concrete 
objects  in  time  can  be  thus  most  properly  termed  historical, 
as  against  the  supposedly  pure  duration  of  the  natural  world 
in  absolute  time  and  independent  of  consciousness;  the 
application  of  the  latter  conception  outside  the  limits  of  the 
system  of  naturalism  to  concrete  empirical  reality  is  clearly 
self-contradictory,  since  concrete  empirical  reality  involves 
actuality.  The  concrete  object,  element  of  the  full  empirical 
reahty,  while  transcending  in  duration  any  particular  actuali- 
zation, is  still  dependent  on  the  whole  series  of  its  actualiza- 
tions for  its  existence.     And  every  actual  reconstruction  adds 


Il8  CULTURAL  REALITY 

something  to  its  real  constitution.  Its  duration  is  thus 
essentially  its  becoming;  whatever  it  is  at  any  now,  it  must 
have  gradually  become  during  the  whole  series  of  its  preceding 
now''?,,  and  every  now  is  a  moment,  a  stage  of  the  process  of 
its  gradual  creation.  We  have  seen  that  at  every  now  it 
is  an  extensive  object  and  includes  all  the  variations  of 
content  and  all  the  variations  of  meaning  ascribed  to  it  by  all 
the  individuals  who  have  ever  reconstructed  it.  Therefore 
its  duration  must  be  conceived  as  a  gradual  becoming  of  its 
content  and  meaning;  every  actualization  by  incorporating 
it  into  a  complex  adds  both  a  new  variation  of  content  and  a 
new  variation  of  meaning,  and  the  totality  of  these  actuali- 
zations up  to  a  certain  moment  have  constructed  its  total 
content  and  its  total  meaning  as  existing  at  this  moment, 
that  is,  have  created  it  entirely  as  a  concrete  empirical  object. 
Since  this  process  is  historical,  the  objects  must  have  a 
beginning  in  historical  time.  It  is  not  enough  for  us  to  have 
shown  from  the  formal  standpoint  how  a  datum  as  object- 
matter  of  thought  is  a  content,  and  a  content  by  being 
connected  with  other  contents  becomes  an  object.  This 
deduction  of  reality  from  experience  would  be  sufficient  if 
objectivation  had,  as  was  usually  assumed  in  the  past,  a 
purely  ideal  significance,  if  it  did  not  affect  the  objects  them- 
selves empirically  in  their  extension  and  duration.  Since  it 
does  affect  them,  since  it  leaves  an  empirical  trace  in  reality, 
our  logical  explanation  of  reality  must  be  supplemented. 
Every  act  of  objectivation  is  an  act  which  occurs  in  a  certain 
part  of  empirical  extension  and  at  a  certain  moment  of  em- 
pirical duration,  and  we  cannot,  like  the  idealists  or  realists, 
neglect  this  point  as  immaterial,  for  these  acts  condition 
objects  not  only  in  their  existence  for  any  one  of  us  at  any 
moment,  but  also  in  their  existence  for  themselves  in  their 
total  objective  extension  and  duration.  In  other  words, 
the  historical  existence  belongs  to  the  essence  of  all  real 
empirical  objects  as  such.     Therefore  the  phenomenological 


EMPIRICAL  OBJECT  AND  HISTORICAL  REALITY  119 

question,  "How  are  objects  in  general  empirically  possible 
for  us?"  must  be  supplemented  by  the  ontological  question, 
"How  is  any  particular  empirical  object  historically  possible 
for  itself?" 

Evidently  there  can  be  within  the  domain  of  historical 
experience  no  absolute  beginning  of  an  object  in  the  sense  of  a 
pure  and  sudden  creation  of  an  entirely  new  content  and  its 
endowment  with  an  entirely  new  meaning.  Active  thought 
must  have  data  to  turn  into  contents  and  objectivate  in  con- 
nection with  other  contents,  and  data  can  arise  only  out  of 
the  subjectivation  of  pre-existing  reality.  When  we  have  an 
artificially  isolated  sphere  of  reality,  we  find  indeed  seemingly 
entirely  new  objects  appearing  within  it,  new  works  of  art 
within  the  domain  of  aesthetic  reality,  new  ideas  within 
theoretic  reahty,  new  inventions  within  material  reahty,  new 
myths  within  religious  reahty,  etc.  But  in  all  these  cases 
something  pre-existed  outside  of  this  domain  and  the  new 
object  has  been  constructed  from  this  pre-existing  material; 
it  may  be  absolutely  new  within  the  given  system,  but  only 
relatively  new  on  the  ground  of  the  full  concrete  reality.  The 
concrete  duration  is  indeed  a  continual  becoming,  but  this 
becoming  is  possible  only  in  the  form  of  a  continual  appearance 
of  new  variations  of  pre-existing  objects. 

We  find  in  the  cultural  world  two  distinct  types  of  this 
becoming  of  historical  objects.  One  is  the  intentional  pro- 
duction of  new  objects  on  the  ground  of  the  rational  organiza- 
tion of  pre-existing  materials  and  instruments.  We  shall 
study  it  in  a  later  chapter.  The  other,  more  primary,  is  the 
unorganized  evolution  of  new  objects  by  a  gradual  differen- 
tiation of  pre-existing  objects.  If  a  certain  variation  of 
content  and  meaning  which  may  at  first  only  be  added  to 
some  existing  historical  object  continues  to  develop  by  new 
actualizations,  if  within  a  certain  part  of  the  concrete  empirical 
world  it  becomes  more  and  more  frequently  actualized  inde- 
pendently of  the  original  object  of  which  it  is  a  variation,  it 


I20  CULTURAL  REALITY 

acquires  in  this  series  of  actualizations  a  growing  fixity  and 
objectivity  and  thus  begins  to  be  treated  as  a  separate 
object  rather  than  as  a  mere  variation.  As  its  content  and 
meaning  develop  in  new  connections,  it  can  indefinitely  grow 
in  extension.  It  is,  of  course,  impossible  to  say  when  the  new 
object  is  definitively  constituted  as  independently  existing, 
unless  when  we  take  it  exclusively  within  the  limits  of  some 
particular  complex  in  which  it  is  isolated  and  thus  implicitly 
ignore  any  variations  that  remain  outside  of  this  complex. 
This  evolution  may  be  primarily  founded  either  on  a  differen- 
tiation of  content  or  on  one  of  meaning;  in  the  first  case, 
evidently,  a  corresponding  modification  of  meaning,  in  the 
second,  a  corresponding  modification  of  content,  has  to  follow 
before  the  new  object  acquires  enough  of  an  independent 
existence  to  be  treated  as  a  separate  object. 

Since  the  beginning  of  the  historical  existence  of  every 
single  object  is  thus  to  be  found  always  in  pre-existing  histori- 
cal objects,  the  existence  of  the  whole  world  of  experience  in 
time  has  a  character  of  continuity.  But  this  continuity  is 
clearly  not  at  all  identical  with  the  conception  of  causal 
continuity  of  the  natural  world,  though  the  concept  of  causal 
continuity  may  have  its  origin  in  a  special  determination  of 
this  general  continuity  of  concrete  evolution  in  view  of  the 
specific  problems  raised  by  the  necessity  of  adapting  the  closed 
naturalistic  system  to  the  temporal  character  of  empirical 
reahty.  The  fundamental  differences  between  these  two 
continuities  are  these:  (a)  while  the  natural  phenomenon  is 
conceived  as  effectively  brought  into  existence  by  preceding 
phenomena,  the  new  historical  object  is  merely  passively 
conditioned  by  pre-existing  historical  objects,  needs  them  to 
appear  in  existence,  but  is  produced  not  hy  them,  only  from 
them  by  active  thought;  {h)  while  the  natural  phenomenon  is 
completely  conditioned  in  its  entire  temporal  existence  by 
other  phenomena,  the  new  historical  object  is  conditioned 
only  in  the  very  beginning,  and  even  then  not  completely,  by 


EMPIRICAL  OBJECT  AND  HISTORICAL  REALITY         I2l 

the  content  and  meaning  of  the  object,  or  objects,  from  which 
it  evolves,  and  becomes  less  and  less  dependent  on  the  char- 
acter of  this  pre-existing  historical  object  and  more  and  more 
dependent  on  its  own  character  as  its  evolution  progresses. 
The  continuity  in  duration  of  the  concrete  empirical  world 
is  thus  historical,  not  natural;  is  a  continuity  of  growth  by 
the  agency  of  creative  thought,  not  a  continuity  of  changes 
determining  one  another. 

Examples  hke  the  evolution  of  a  new  word  or  of  a  new 
myth  illustrate  this  gradual  unorganized  growth  of  historical 
objects.  Every  new  actualization  of  a  word  brings  with  it 
a  variation,  however  sHght,  of  its  content,  due  to  the  pecu- 
liarities of  pronunciation  determined  in  part  by  organic 
differences  between  individuals,  in  part  by  the  conditions 
in  which  it  is  used  which  provoke  special  intonations,  in  part 
finally  to  the  influence  of  other  words  in  the  phrase ;  and  every 
such  variation  is  added  to  its  concrete  content,  which  thus 
grows  in  complexity  all  the  time.  The  philological  fixation 
of  this  content  in  a  dictionary  or  grammar  is,  of  course,  merely 
an  abstract  formula  of  its  whole  complexity,  as  is  shown  by 
the  need  to  modify  the  formula  when  after  a  longer  evolution 
of  the  word  itself  the  old  formula  ceases  to  correspond  to  the 
prevalent  characters  of  its  content;  the  old  prevalent  char- 
acters have  been,  in  the  consciousness  of  the  people,  pushed 
into  shadow  by  the  gradually  agglomerating  new  characters. 
But  it  may  be  also  that  the  old  and  the  new  pronunciation 
coexist:  we  may  have  a  word  with  two  forms.  A  similar 
evolution  goes  on  with  respect  to  the  meaning  of  the  word, 
when  the  latter  in  different  actualizations  is  applied  either  to 
different  objects  or  to  the  same  object  viewed  from  different 
standpoints.  Thus  the  complexity  of  the  meaning  may  grow 
so  that  nothing  but  its  general  limits  are  outlined  with  a 
rough  approximation  in  the  formal  scheme  of  a  philological 
definition  of  the  word,  which  must  also  change  when  a  new 
and  gradually  agglomerated  predominant  meaning  has  pushed 


i 


122  CULTURAL  REALITY 

into  the  background  the  meaning  that  formerly  predominated. 
But  it  may  be  that  both  the  old  and  the  new  meaning  coexist: 
we  may  have  a  word  with  two  meanings.  And  if  the  evolu- 
tion of  content  and  the  evolution  of  meaning  go  on  side  by 
side,  the  word  splits  definitely  into  two  distinct  words.  The 
myth  shows  a  very  analogous  process  of  growth,  only  here 
differentiation  of  content  is  more  regularly  followed  by  a 
differentiation  of  meaning  and  reciprocally. 

As  long  as  this  conception  of  growth  is  applied  to  the 
reality  traditionally  called  "cultural"  in  the  narrower  sense 
of  the  term,  hardly  any  serious  difficulties  can  arise,  if  we  only 
remember  that  this  spontaneous  growth  gives  place  more  and 
more  on  higher  stages  of  culture  to  voluntary  organized 
production,  which  we  shall  study  later.  Historical  and 
ethnological  investigations  have  accustomed  us  to  the  idea 
of  an  incalculable  development  of  historical  objects,  to  the 
conception  that  the  entire  enormous  complexity  of  cultural 
contents  and  meanings  have  appeared  from  exceedingly  poor 
and  simple  beginnings  as  the  product  of  active  thought.  But 
all  our  intellectual  traditions  revolt  against  the  application 
of  this  formula  to  the  duration  of  material  objects,  parts  of 
nature — mountains,  rivers,  planets,  etc.  How  is  it  possible 
to  interpret  the  existence  of  these  objects  in  time  as  the 
evolution  of  historical  objects  growing  by  the  addition  of 
new  variations  of  content  and  meaning  in  a  series  of  actualiza- 
tions ?  And  yet,  it  is  not  only  by  analogy  that  we  are  forced 
to  extend  our  principle  to  cover  natural  objects  as  well. 

By  way  of  introduction,  we  may  mention  that  the  apparent 
theoretic  difficulty  of  interpreting  natural  objects  as  historical 
objects  becoming  through  actualization  has  been  in  a  large 
measure  due  to  the  philosophical  custom  of  first  of  all  accepting 
the  world  of  nature  as  ready  with  all  its  object  and  laws,  as  a 
perfectly  closed,  finished,  and  rational  system,  and  only  then 
trying  to  criticize  its  objectivity  as  a  whole,  instead  of  studying 
how  this  system  has  grown,  step  by  step,  and  criticizing  its 


EMPIRICAL  OBJECT  AND  HISTORICAL  REALITY  123 

internal  construction.  Therefore,  when  naturahsm  intro- 
duced the  idea  of  evolution  into  this  system  and  attempted  to 
explain  causally  the  origin  of  natural  objects,  idealistic 
criticism  willingly  admitted  that  the  origin  of  natural  objects 
as  such  could  be  explained  causally  from  the  standpoint  of 
the  natural  system  in  the  same  way  as,  for  instance,  particular 
physical  or  biological  changes:  it  saw  no  essential  difference 
between  the  explanation  of  a  repeatable  change  by  a  cause 
and  the  explanation  of  the  origin  of  an  object  by  a  combination 
of  causes,  and  continued  to  criticize  the  naturalistic  system 
en  bloc,  as  if  all  the  principles  assumed  by  the  naturalistic 
theory  had  the  same  validity  within  the  system  of  nature. 
Whereas  the  point  is  that,  whatever  may  be  the  validity  of 
the  causal  explanations  when  applied  to  the  natural  reality  as 
already  given,  these  explanations  are  inapplicable  to  the 
genesis  of  this  reality  or  of  any  of  its  parts;  the  naturalistic 
system  precludes  the  possibility  of  explaining  not  only  the 
origin  of  full  historical  objects,  but  even  the  origin  of  its  own 
objects,  of  objects  as  determined  rationally  within  its  own 
limits.  And  therefore  even  some  naturalistic  theories  of  the 
world  which  understand  all  the  implications  of  the  idea  of 
natural  evolution  see  the  necessity  of  appealing,  as  Bergson 
does,  to  some  mystical  creative  essence  underlying  empirical 
nature.  For  the  most  striking  feature  about  the  evolution 
of  the  natural  world  as  material  world  is  the  gradual  appear- 
ance of  innumerable  new  contents,  whereas  the  causal  natural- 
istic explanation  traces  only  the  evolution  of  the  mechanical 
or  energetic  conditions  under  which  these  contents  are 
supposed  to  have  appeared.  The  fact  that  they  have  actually 
appeared  in  the  empirical  world  is  thus  taken  for  granted. 
But,  if  these  contents  are  then  considered  objective,  belonging 
to  the  natural  things  in  themselves,  as  pure  naturalistic 
realism  presupposes,  this  is  equivalent  to  an  implicit  assump- 
tion of  a  world  of  Platonic  ideas  existing  besides  the  world  of 
nature  and  to  an  implicit  admission  that  some  of  those  ideas 


124  CULTURAL  REALITY 

come  into  materiality  when  the  proper  conditions  are  given; 
whereas,  if  these  contents  are  considered,  as  in  the  conceptions 
of  naturalistic  dualism,  as  subjective,  as  occurring  only  in 
consciousness  and  constituting  a  reaction  of  conscious  living 
beings  to  new  conditions  of  their  material  environment  in 
which  these  living  beings  are  assumed  to  have  appeared  them- 
selves as  causal  products  of  evolution,  we  have  a  theory  to 
which  we  can  apply  the  Schopenhauerian  comparison  with 
Baron  Munchausen  who  pulled  himself  and  his  horse  out  of  a 
quagmire  by  his  own  hair.  But  philosophy  has  had  nothing 
to  substitute  for  these  pseudo-explanations  because  the  in- 
dividuahstic  limitation  of  subjective  ideahsm  did  not  permit 
it  to  trace  the  origin  of  objects  beyond  the  duration  of  indi- 
vidual consciousness,  and  the  timeless  character  of  objective 
ideahsm  prevented  it  from  even  stating  adequately  the  full 
problem  of  the  historical  origin  of  objects.  If,  however,  we 
now  succeed  in  overcoming  the  subject-object  duaUsm  and  the 
habit  of  looking  upon  nature  as  having  become  what  it  is 
without  the  participation  of  thought,  all  difficulties  vanish. 

We  must  first  of  all  subdivide  the  problem.  We  neglect 
entirely  that  traditional  part  of  it  which  concerns  the  existence 
of  natural  objects  beyond  the  reach  of  our  experience  and 
reflection  in  general.  We  are  concerned  exclusively  with 
empirical  objects  and  it  would  be  self-contradictory  to  ask 
whether  these  objects  have  any  existence  beyond  all  experience 
and  reflection,  for  the  concept  of  existence  has  no  significance 
whatever  unless  used  of  empirical  reality  as  empirically  given 
object-matter  of  actual  thought.  Secondly,  we  exclude 
provisionally  the  problem  of  the  determination  of  a  natural 
object,  for  example,  a  mountain,  a  river,  a  planet,  by  the 
entire  natural  system  of  which  it  is  a  part,  because  the  dis- 
cussion of  this  problem  would  involve  the  question  of  the 
relative  vahdity  of  the  natural  system  as  such,  which  we  have 
already  postponed.  We  are  concerned  here  exclusively  with 
the  existence,  in  concrete  empirical  duration,  of  these  objects 


EMPIRICAL  OBJECT  AND  HISTORICAL  REALITY  125 

as  elements  of  the  whole  concrete  world  of  our  experience  in 
general  and  not  merely  with  their  existence  within  the  natural 
system  as  one  of  the  specifically  organized  complexes  which 
exist  within  concrete  experience. 

It  is  clear  that  in  these  cases  a  direct  appeal  to  the  testi- 
mony of  experience  cannot  have  the  same  conclusiveness  as  the 
one  which  we  made  in  the  case  of  words  and  myths,  for  the 
empirical  evolution  of  a  natural  object  through  a  series  of 
actuahzations  can  be  scarcely  observed;  even  on  the  basis  of 
our  theory,  it  takes  thousands  of  years  to  produce  a  really 
important  change  in  the  sensual  appearance  of  reality.  Still, 
there  are  observations  which  may  be  termed  suggestive  at 
least.  Probably  no  one  has  failed  to  notice  the  fact  that  the 
appearance  of  any  material  object  changes  after  a  long 
acquaintance  with  it.  This  change  is,  of  course,  put  by 
common  sense  into  the  psychological  subject;  but  there  is  no 
psychological  subject.  In  any  case,  therefore,  natural  objects 
as  empirical  objects  do  evolve  by  being  actualized,  though  it 
would  be  impossible  to  define  exactly  in  any  given  example  the 
character  of  the  evolution.  We  have  sufficiently  demon- 
strated that  in  concrete  reaHty  any  modifications  are  modi- 
fications of  the  objects  themselves  as  historical  objects,  not 
of  their  representations.  The  question  then  is  what  is  the 
relative  importance  for  the  objects  of  such  modifications  as 
compared  with  the  more  general  content  of  these  objects,  and 
we  can  perhaps  hope  for  some  answer  to  this  question  from  the 
history  of  culture,  of  aesthetic  culture  in  particular. 

However,  this  is  not  the  central  point  of  the  problem.  As 
long  as  we  take  only  single  observable  changes  in  the  sensual 
content  of  objects,  we  have  no  positive  arguments  to  oppose 
to  the  assumption  that  such  changes  concern  these  objects 
only  as  subjective  data  and  not  as  self-existing  reahties.  But 
if  we  take  into  account  the  totality  of  modifications  which  an 
object  undergoes  during  its  empirical  existence,  the  subjec- 
tivistic  interpretation  proves   completely  untenable.     It  is 


126  CULTURAL  REALITY 

evident  that  any  empirical  object,  and  therefore  also  the 
mountain,  the  river,  the  planet,  can  have  duration  in  concrete 
empirical  time  only  by  being  given  in  a  series  of  actualizations, 
so  that  the  beginning  of  its  empirical  existence  as  real  object 
cannot  in  any  case  go  beyond  the  beginning  of  its  actualiza- 
tions, that  is,  beyond  the  beginning  of  individual  experience 
and  thought  in  general.  The  only  problem  which  we  must 
now  boldly  face  is,  whether  it  can  be  assumed  that  it  began  to 
exist  as  empirical  object  with  all  the  content  and  meaning 
which  it  now  possesses  or  whether  its  content  and  meaning 
were  constructed  gradually  through  an  immeasurably  long 
series  of  actualizations,  even  as  the  content  and  meaning  of 
other  concrete  objects  like  the  word  or  the  myth  whose  origin 
we  can  trace  historically.  This  alternative  would  hardly 
even  be  stated,  if  it  were  not  for  two  arguments  which  seem 
to  point  toward  the  first  solution. 

The  one  is  an  argument  by  analogy,  based  upon  the  fact 
that  when  we  find  now  a  sensual  object  which  seems  to  have 
never  before  been  actually  given  to  anybody — say  a  mountain 
in  the  polar  region  or  a  telescopic  planetoid — it  is  given  at 
once  with  all  the  characters  of  a  mountain  or  a  planetoid. 
From  this  it  is  concluded  that  when  consciousness  first  began 
to  exist  it  found  nature  at  once  possessing  all  the  objective 
characters  which  it  possesses  now.  But  the  fact  is  that,  once 
given  our  present  world  of  nature  in  general,  whatever  its 
origin,  the  content  of  any  new  natural  object  which  we 
discover  is  a  mere  variation  of  some  already  existing  contents 
of  other  natural  objects,  a  variation  whose  highly  developed 
form  is  now  possible  only  because  a  long  creative  development 
of  contents  has  preceded  it  and  because  it  is  itself  a  creative 
continuation  of  this  development.  It  is  evident  that  this 
content  must  be  given  as  a  natural  object  after  its  discovery, 
since  the  very  process  of  "discovering  an  object  in  nature" 
involves  the  estabhshment  in  actuality  of  many  connections 
between  this  content  and  various  pre-existing  natural  objects, 


EMPIRICAL  OBJECT  AND  HISTORICAL  REALITY  127 

SO  that  by  assuming  that  we  have  "discovered  it  in  nature" 
we  have  actually  incorporated  it  into  nature;  we  have  made 
the  content  a  part  of  the  natural  system,  we  have  given  it 
ourselves  a  meaning  similar  to  those  which  other  objects 
possess  within  the  natural  system,  and  thereby  we  have 
constructed  it  as  a  natural  object.  If  somebody  should 
presuppose  that  there  is  something,  some  trans-cultural 
reality  underlying  this  empirical  "mountain"  or  "planetoid," 
that  this  new  object  does  not  resolve  itself  into  a  content 
which  is  a  creatively  produced  variation  of  other  contents  of 
already  known  mountains  or  planetoids,  and  an  actually 
produced  set  of  empirical  connections,  he  would  have  to  show 
what  this  underlying  reality  empirically  consists  in,  other- 
wise his  conception  would  be  empirically  meaningless,  since 
an  empirically  inaccessible  reality  is  nonsense.  The  only 
way  he  could  show  what  there  is  behind  this  content  and 
meaning  which  constitutes  empirically  the  mountain  or 
planetoid  would  be  by  historical  analysis  which,  having 
excluded  all  that  in  mountains  and  planetoids  is  the  product 
of  the  activities  of  conscious  beings,  might  find  something 
original  and  pre-conscious  left  in  these  objects.  But  we  cannot 
tell  whether  any  such  discovered  remnant  really  existed  in 
fact  before  all  activity  or  whether  it  is  not  a  mere  creation,  a 
product  of  our  own  historical  analysis,  unless  we  have  already 
demonstrated  that  nature  did  exist  before  consciousness, 
which  is  the  very  problem  we  are  seeking  to  prove.  From 
the  fact  that  any  particular  object  is  given  with  all  the  prop- 
erties of  a  natural  object  now  when  our  world  of  nature  in 
general  is  already  given,  it  is  evidently  impossible  to  conclude 
that  nature  itself  when  first  given  was  given  at  once  with  all 
the  properties  of  our  present  nature.  The  situations  are  not 
at  all  analogous. 

The  other  empirical  argument  consists  in  pointing  out  that, 
as  far  as  our  historical  and  ethnological  researches  reach  now, 
the  content  and  connection  of  natural  objects  do  not  seem  to 


128  CULTURAL  REALITY 

have  changed  except  by  natural  causes.  This  is  really  the 
converse  of  the  first  argument  and  like  it  begs  the  question. 
The  answer  to  the  question  whether  natural  objects  have 
changed  or  not  during  evolution  will  depend,  as  we  have 
already  seen  in  our  first  chapter,  on  the  philosophical  stand- 
point taken  toward  this  evolution.  If  we  claim  that  all 
changes  of  the  mechanical,  physical,  chemical  properties  and 
relations  of  objects  as  given  to  us  are  changes  of  our  sub- 
jective views,  are  pure  discoveries  of  previously  existing 
properties  and  relations,  then,  of  course,  we  shall  say  that 
objects  have  not  changed;  but  this  is  precisely  a  matter  of 
contention. 

The  irrelevancy  of  these  two  arguments  leaves  the  problem 
open.  The  content  and  the  meaning  which  natural  objects, 
Uke  all  empirical  objects,  have  for  a  certain  individual  depend 
on  the  spheres  of  experience  and  reflection  of  this  individual. 
Whatever  a  reahty  may  be  in  itself,  for  any  concrete  person- 
aHty  it  is  empirically  only  that  which  this  individual  experi- 
ences and  reconstructs.  Though  at  any  particular  moment  an 
individual's  passive  experience  and  his  active  reconstruction 
do  not  coincide,  because  his  subjectivation  is  concerned  with 
different  objects  than  his  objectivation,  the  limits  of  his  total 
sphere  of  experience  tend  to  coincide  with  those  of  his  total 
sphere  of  reflection,  for  he  cannot  reconstruct  anything  he  has 
never  approximately  experienced  and  he  cannot  experience 
anything  which  he  has  never  approximately  reconstructed. 
We  say  approximately  because  in  incorporating  into  a  complex 
an  object  which  he  has  passively  experienced,  he  modifies  it 
in  some  measure,  and  no  object  returns  in  his  passive  experi- 
ence with  exactly  the  same  characters  which  it  received  when 
actively  objectivated  by  him,  since  it  is  not  a  purely  personal 
object  but  is  modified  also  independently  of  this  particular 
individual.  Both  the  sphere  of  experience  and  the  sphere  of 
reflection  are  thus  continually  growing  by  new  additions. 
But  the  growth  of  the  sphere  of  experience  is  gradual  and 


EMPIRICAL  OBJECT  AND  HISTORICAL  REALITY         129 

parallel  to  that  of  the  sphere  of  reflection  and  vice  versa, 
and  these  two  spheres  are  dependent  on  each  other:  the 
individual  widens  his  sphere  of  experience  by  widening 
his  sphere  of  reflection  and  reciprocally.  And  the  total 
field  covered  at  any  moment  by  both  his  experience  and 
his  reflection  as  developed  up  to  this  moment  consti- 
tutes what  we  may  call  his  ''sphere  of  reahty,"  that  is, 
reality  as  existing  for  this  individual  at  this  moment  of 
his  evolution. 

We  do  not  need  any  particular  intuition,  any  "feehng 
ourselves  into"  the  consciousness  of  another  individual  in 
order  to  ascertain  objectively  how  wide  and  complicated  his 
sphere  of  reality  is,  because  we  find  a  perfectly  adequate 
objective  criterion  in  the  range  of  his  activity,  in  the  widest 
sense  of  the  term,  as  manifested  in  its  real  results.  When 
measured  by  this  criterion,  the  individual's  sphere  of  reahty 
not  only  increases  during  the  development  of  his  personality, 
but  between  the  widest  limits  reached  by  various  individuals, 
respectively,  we  find  very  great  differences.  If  we  compare 
the  widest  individual  spheres  of  reality  at  different  epochs 
of  the  cultural  evolution,  we  find  they  have  enormously 
increased  even  during  the  purely  historical  period  of  existence 
of  the  human  race.  A  sociologist  may  affirm  that  a  leading 
individual  of  five  thousand  years  ago  might  have  been  capable 
of  embracing  by  his  activity  as  wide  a  domain  of  reality  as  a 
leading  modern  individual,  but  actually,  as  a  matter  of  fact, 
he  did  not:  the  question  of  his  potentialities  may  have  some 
significance  within  the  limits  of  race  psychology,  but  is 
irrelevant  for  a  philosophical  theory  of  concrete  reahty. 
And,  of  course,  the  difference  between  the  present  and  the 
past  becomes  much  greater  if  we  leave  direct  historical  testi- 
mony and  pass  to  an  indirect  reconstruction  of  the  spheres  of 
activity  of  the  early  representatives  of  the  human  race,  with 
the  help  of  paleontology  and  comparative  ethnology;  and  it 
becomes  quite  incalculable  if  we  go  farther  still  and  try  to 


I30  CULTURAL  REALITY 

conjecture,  not,  indeed,  about  any  particular  "mental" 
properties,  but  about  the  domain  or  reality  embraced  by  the 
activity  of  animal  beings  in  the  pre-human  past. 

Then,  the  next  point  which  must  be  kept  clearly  in  view, 
one  which  results,  moreover,  from  our  discussion  in  a  previous 
section  of  the  extensiveness  of  concrete  reality,  is  that, 
whereas  the  empirical  world  at  any  given  moment  is  not 
limited  as  objective  world  to  the  contents  and  meanings  that 
its  objects  possess  in  the  spheres  of  experience  and  reflection 
of  any  one  individual,  it  evidently  is  identical  with  the  total 
reality  of  all  the  individuals  who  live  and  act  in  it,  with  all 
their  spheres  of  reality  taken  together.  Therefore,  at  the 
present  moment  the  empirical  world  includes  all  that  is 
included  in  the  spheres  of  reality  of  all  the  empirically  Hving 
and  active  individuals,  from  the  greatest  scientist  down  to  the 
protozoon.  But  it  includes  nothing  more.  The  science  of 
nature,  from  the  standpoint  and  within  the  limits  of  the 
naturalistic  system,  claims  that  nature  includes  even  now  the 
things,  properties,  and  relations  which  will  be  discovered  in  it 
a  hundred  years  from  now.  But  our  standpoint  here  is  that 
of  concrete  historical  reahty,  not  of  any  special  ontological 
systematization  of  this  reahty.  And  from  the  standpoint  of 
concrete  reaUty  the  material  reality  does  not  include  now  the 
contents  and  meanings  which  will  be  given  to  it  in  the  spheres 
of  experience  and  reflection  of  some  great  scientist  a  hundred 
years  from  now,  any  more  than  art  includes  now  the  works 
which  will  be  produced  by  some  great  artist  a  hundred  years 
from  now,  or  social  life  the  forms  of  political  organization 
which  will  be  given  to  social  groups  a  hundred  years  from  now. 
We  may  try  to  foresee  the  direction  of  the  future  evolution  of 
the  concrete  empirical  material  reality,  even  as  we  may  try 
to  foresee  the  direction  of  the  future  evolution  of  art  or  of 
political  organization,  that  is  as  of  an  evolution  dependent 
in  a  gradually  decreasing  measure  both  on  the  present  char- 
acter of  reality  and  on  the  present  direction  of  active  thought; 


EMPIRICAL  OBJECT  AND  HISTORICAL  REALITY         131 

we  cannot  foresee  the  future  contents  and  meanings,  because 
this  would  be  producing  them  in  advance. 

The  same  considerations  bear  on  every  past  stage  of 
evolution.  The  concrete  empirical  real  world  contained  at 
any  past  moment  everything  that  was  contained  in  the 
spheres  of  reality  of  all  conscious  individuals  living  and  acting 
in  it,  and  contained  nothing  more.  At  periods  when  in  the 
empirical  world  there  were  no  conscious  beings  higher  than 
the  mollusca,  the  empirical  world  was  the  totality  of  the 
spheres  of  reality  of  all  conscious,  that  is,  active,  beings  from 
the  mollusca  down. 

It  may  be  objected  that  this  conclusion  is  absurd,  for  the 
mollusca  needed  a  definite  milieu  to  live  in,  so  their  world 
could  not  have  been  limited  to  their  own  spheres  of  reality 
but  must  have  been  such  as  we  reconstruct  it  now,  for  only 
then  it  could  have  offered  them  the  necessary  conditions  of 
existence.  Let  us  again  face  the  problem  simply  and  squarely. 
Of  course,  the  mollusca  as  the  investigating  scientist  sees 
them  now,  with  such  bodies  as  they  now  have,  can  exist  only 
in  a  milieu  of  the  kind  which  the  scientist  reconstructs  for 
them.  But  their  bodies,  like  all  bodies,  are  parts  of  our 
empirical  reality,  are  objects  of  our  concrete  experience  and 
reflection.  As  objects  they  determine  other  objects  and  are 
determined  by  them.  Now,  as  parts  of  our  present  world  of 
experience,  they  contain,  like  every  other  object,  all  the  con- 
tents and  meanings  which  they  have  ever  possessed  for  all 
the  individuals  who  have  ever  experienced  and  reproduced 
them  as  objects,  and  nothing  more.  Both  the  bodies  of 
actually  living  mollusca  and  the  shells  found  in  old  geological 
formations  include  all  we  ascribe  to  them  as  parts  of  our 
present  nature,  but  the  bodies  of  mollusca,  when  the  latter 
were  the  highest  conscious  beings  on  earth,  did  not  contain 
all  they  do  now.  As  empirical  objects  they  included  only 
that  which  was  practically  experienced  by  their  owners 
themselves   and   by   other   contemporary   conscious   beings. 


132  CULTURAL  REALITY 

They  were  "adapted  to  their  milieu,"  even  as  the  bodies  of  the 
present  mollusca  appear  to  us  "adapted"  to  their  present 
miheu.  But  their  miheu  was  then  adapted  only  to  them, 
whereas  now  it  is  adapted  to  the  bodies  of  all  the  innumerable 
superior  conscious  beings  that  live  and  act  in  this  empirical 
world.  Their  bodies  and  their  milieu  were  then  both  empiri- 
cally all  that  and  only  that  which  they  were  as  objects  of  their 
practical  experience. 

Whatever  may  now  be  the  character  of  natural  objects 
within  the  naturalistic  system  and  whatever  may  be  the  range 
of  validity  of  the  naturalistic  system,  in  so  far  as  natural 
objects  are  historical  objects,  elements  of  concrete  reaUty,  we 
must  conclude  that  their  duration  has  the  same  form  as  the 
directly  observable  duration  of  cultural  objects  in  the  narrower 
sense  of  the  term.  All  of  them,  the  bodies  of  conscious  beings 
included,  are  historical  products,  developed  in  content  and 
meaning,  hke  all  historical  objects,  through  a  series  of  actuali- 
zations; only,  in  their  case,  the  series  has  been  incomparably 
longer  and  the  development  incomparably  slower  than  in  the 
case  of  those  cultural  objects  whose  origin  we  can  historically 
follow. 

If  this  evident  conclusion  has  been  usually  avoided,  even 
by  those  who  have  tried  to  reconcile  objective  idealism  and 
historicism,  it  is  simply  because  on  the  ground  of  the  subject- 
object  duahsm,  the  active  participation  of  thought  in  the 
evolution  of  objective  reahty  could  not  be  interpreted  other- 
wise than  by  conceiving  individual  consciousnesses,  each  of 
which  is  evidently  insufficient  to  explain  alone  the  objective 
reahty,  as  included  in  a  general  consciousness,  a  Super- 
Consciousness  or  an  Absolute  Life  or  whatever  else  it  may  be 
called.  As  a  consequence,  philosophers,  even  those  who 
realized  that  the  empirical  world  can  be  nothing  more  than 
what  is  given  of  it  in  experience  and  reflection,  have  still  failed 
to  see  that  in  the  early  stages  of  development  of  experience 
and  reflection,  it  could  not  have  contained  more  than  was 


EMPIRICAL  OBJECT  AND  HISTORICAL  REALITY  133 

given  to  and  actively  reproduced  by  all  the  individuals 
existing  then,  for  they  explicitly  or  imphcitly  thought  of  its 
being  also  given  to  that  absolute  all-embracing  Super- 
Consciousness  and  therefore  containing  all  that  this  Super- 
Consciousness  was  supposed  to  find  in  it.  But  this  whole 
theory  of  Super-Consciousness  is  based  on  a  misunderstanding. 
If  reality  exists  empirically  only  as  experienced  and  recon- 
structed by  conscious  beings,  the  latter  exist  empirically  only 
as  experiencing  and  reconstructing  reality,  that  is,  as  active 
in  it.  We  cannot  assume  any  consciousness  which  does  not 
manifest  itself  empirically  in  the  modification  of  particular 
objects  in  their  content  and  meaning  by  individual  active 
thought,  because  consciousness  is  essentially  actuahty  and 
actuality  as  we  know  it  is  exclusively  the  actuality  of  individ- 
uals, each  with  a  limited  sphere  of  experience  and  a  relative 
reality  as  object-matter  of  his  active  and  Hmited  thought. 
To  speak  of  an  absolute  consciousness  is  therefore  either  a  self- 
contradiction,  if  by  consciousness  we  mean  what  we  empiri- 
cally find  within  our  world,  or  an  empty  combination  of  words, 
if  we  mean  something  else  by  it.  The  same  is  true  of  any 
conception  of  a  conscious  being  which  has  not  actively  mani- 
fested itself  within  our  reality.  Our  concrete  empirical  world 
as  such — we  do  not  speak  here  of  the  world  as  conceived  in 
one  or  another  rational  system — could  not  have  been  present 
at  its  beginning  as  it  now  is,  either  for  a  Super-Ego,  or  for  a 
Super-Consciousness,  or  for  an  inhabitant  of  Mars,  for  it  is 
in  its  entire  empirical  concreteness  what  it  is  only  for  the 
conscious  beings  who  live  and  act  empirically  in  it  and  whose 
existence  and  activity  leave  traces  which  can  be  empirically 
found  in  it. 

EXISTENCE   AND   REALITY 

Having  thus  shown  that  the  empirical  world  is  entirely 
a  world  of  historically  evolved  objects  and  can  contain  nothing 
but  that  which  has  been  gradually  added  to  it  in  actuahty 
by  the  active  thought  of  empirically  manifested  conscious 


134  CULTURAL  REALITY 

individuals,  we  now  meet  a  new  difficulty.  Does  the  world 
contain  all  that  has  been  ever  added  to  it,  is  the  process  of 
evolution  only  a  process  of  creation,  unaccompanied  by 
destruction?  And  if  there  is  destruction,  as  there  certainly 
seems  to  be,  how  can  we  account  for  it  ?  And  supposing  we 
do  reconcile  both  creation  and  destruction,  how  shall  we 
explain  the  prevalence  of  creation  over  destruction  which  is 
necessary  to  have  produced  this  world  ? 

Again  we  must  subdivide  the  problem.  We  exclude  the 
question  of  destruction  and  production  conceived  as  brought 
about  by  natural  causes.  For,  in  a  natural  reality,  by  prin- 
ciple, there  can  be  neither  production  nor  destruction:  there 
is  only  change,  that  is,  production  entirely  balanced  by 
destruction  and  reciprocally.  This  problem  of  change  is 
connected  with  the  general  problem  of  the  world  of  nature 
and  will  therefore  be  treated  separately  from  the  problem  of 
concrete  reality.  Now,  what  does  destruction  mean  for  the 
latter  ? 

When  a  house  is  burned,  what  is  there  destroyed  empiri- 
cally, what  effect  does  the  burning  have  on  the  empirical 
existence  of  the  house  ?  Does  it  destroy  its  content  ?  No, 
for  the  content  persists  in  memory,  can  be  revived  at  any 
moment.  Does  it  destroy  the  meaning  ?  No,  for  the  meaning 
established  before  can  be  revived,  the  acts  suggested  by  it  can 
be  performed,  and,  though  they  can  be  performed  only  in 
imagination,  still  this  does  not  make  them  unreal.  And  yet 
something  has  been  certainly  modified;  the  burned  house  is 
not  the  same  as  the  standing  house.  From  the  standpoint  of 
concrete  reality,  as  object-matter  of  active  thought,  the 
difference  between  the  new  and  the  old  conditions  is  clear; 
the  house  is  no  longer  an  object  of  certain  activities.  Its  old 
content  remains,  but  it  is  no  longer  enriched  by  being  con- 
nected with  other  material  objects;  it  may  be  developed  still 
aesthetically,  but  not  physically.  Its  old  meaning  remains, 
but  no  new  material  or  hedonistic  connections  are  established 


EMPIRICAL  OBJECT  AND  HISTORICAL  REALITY  135 

between  it  and  other  material  objects  or  our  own  bodies. 
It  has  not  ceased  to  exist,  but  it  has  been  removed  from  the 
complex  of  present  material  reality. 

Take  another  example.  A  speech  has  been  made  at  a 
meeting.  It  is  and  remains  an  object  with  a  definite  content 
and  meaning  given  to  it  by  the  speaker  and  all  his  listeners. 
But  after  a  time  many  hsteners  forget  it.  It  has  not  ceased 
to  exist,  for  it  can  always  be  recalled  by  others  and  recon- 
structed; but  it  has  been  at  least  provisionally  removed  from 
the  present  spheres  of  reality  of  those  individuals;  it  is  no 
longer  an  object  of  active  thought  for  them.  Even  those 
who  remember  it  do  not  perform  with  regard  to  it  many  of 
the  actions  which  were  performed  at  the  moment  when  it  was 
made,  do  not  reproduce  it  as  element  of  the  same  complexes 
to  which  it  then  belonged. 

Let  us  go  farther.  There  existed  an  Egyptian  civiUza- 
tion.  It  included  technical  products,  economic  values, 
political  and  social  organizations,  language,  religion,  art, 
science — in  a  word,  everything  a  full  civilization  can  contain. 
It  disappeared  with  the  ancient  Egyptians,  and  for  fifteen 
hundred  years  little  was  known  about  it.  Does  this  mean 
that  it  has  ceased  to  exist?  No,  because  during  the  past 
century  more  and  more  of  its  objects  have  been  gradually 
reproduced  in  their  content  and  meaning,  and  they  are  still 
the  same  concrete  historical  objects,  not  different  ones,  in  so 
far  as  the  reconstruction  is  exact.  Of  course,  not  all  their 
content  and  not  all  their  meaning  has  been  reproduced,  but 
this  is  only  a  matter  of  degree.  In  fact,  the  reproduction  of 
one  or  another  object,  of  one  or  another  variation  of  the 
content  or  meaning  of  an  object,  may  be  impracticable,  but 
it  can  never  be  said  to  be  absolutely  impossible.  And  no 
historical  object  which  can  be  actually  revived  has  ceased  to 
exist,  however  short  or  long  the  span  of  time  between  its 
successive  actualizations,  however  small  or  great  the  variation 
of  content  and  meaning  which  its  new  actualization  brings 


136  CULTURAL  REALITY 

with  it.  Yet  there  is  a  fundamental  difference  between  the 
way  these  historical  objects  existed  in  ancient  Egypt  and 
the  way  they  exist  for  us  now.  They  are  not  for  us  objects 
of  new  actions  of  the  same  type  as  those  performed  by  the 
Egyptians ;  we  do  not  take  them  as  parts  of  similar  complexes. 
We  do  not  use  their  technical  products  for  practical  purposes, 
their  exchange-values  are  not  (or  not  in  the  same  proportions) 
exchange-values  for  us,  we  are  little  concerned  with  their 
myths  and  ritual  in  our  own  religious  systems,  we  do  not  speak 
their  language,  their  science  is  for  us  merely  a  historical  datum, 
not  a  source  of  our  own  truth;  only  their  art,  their  morality, 
their  pohtical  and  social  organization,  may  have  preserved 
for  us  a  slight  vestige  of  their  old  vitaKty,  may  influence  in  a 
minimal  way  our  own  art,  our  own  morality,  our  own  social 
life.  Their  values  have  dropped  out  of  those  systems  of 
reahty  which  are  now  within  the  limits  of  our  vital  interests. 

These  three  examples,  the  burning  of  a  house,  forgetting 
of  an  event  by  an  individual,  passing  away  of  an  old  civiHza- 
tion,  illustrate  the  same  general  principle,  which  we  must  now 
take  into  consideration. 

We  postpone  provisionally  the  question  how  it  happens 
that  a  certain  historical  object  becomes  excluded  from  a 
certain  complex  of  reahty,  and  how  it  not  only  is  not,  but  often 
cannot  be  connected  with  other  values  of  this  complex.  Such 
an  exclusion  implies  that  the  respective  domain  of  reality  is 
rationally  organized  and  excludes  the  given  historical  object 
by  virtue  of  its  organization;  and  we  shall  speak  of  the  rational 
organization  of  reality  later  on.  Here  we  are  concerned  with 
the  entire  concrete  existence  of  a  historical  object,  independ- 
ent of  any  special  determination  it  may  acquire  and  special 
conditions  to  which  it  may  be  subjected  within  one  or  another 
isolated  system  to  which  it  may  belong.  From  this  general 
standpoint  the  problem  stated  above  demands  that  a  distinc- 
tion be  made  between  the  mere  fact  of  the  existence  of  a 
historical  object  and  the  degree  of  its  realness. 


EMPIRICAL  OBJECT  AND  HISTORICAL  REALITY  137 

The  concept  of  existence  is,  for  the  concrete  historical 
world,  retrospective.  It  bears  on  all  that,  and  only  on  that 
which  has  been  already  evolved  and  as  far  as  it  has  been 
evolved.  To  exist  means  simply  to  be  in  itself  and  for  itself, 
not  merely  for  actual  thought.  Of  course  empirically  nothing 
exists  which  has  not  been  produced  by  actual  thought  and 
which  cannot  become  again  an  object-matter  of  actual 
thought,  but  as  far  as  already  existing  it  does  not  depend  on 
actual  thought  for  its  further  existence.  The  existence  of 
concrete  things  is  neither  their  pure  actuality,  nor  a  pure 
transcendence  of  all  actuality,  but  a  transcendence  of  any 
particular  actuality  and  of  any  number  of  actualities.  An 
object  exists  only  as  far  as  it  has  been  actually  created;  an 
object  that  has  yet  to  be  created  does  not  exist;  possibiHty  of 
being  created  is  not  equivalent  to  potential  existence,  and  this 
differentiates  the  concrete  historical  reaUty  from  the  abstractly 
determined  physical  reality  in  which  the  future  may  be  said 
to  exist  in  the  present  because  it  is  supposed  predetermined 
entirely  by  the  present.  However,  all  the  objects  which  have 
been  already  created,  with  all  their  variations  of  content  and 
meaning,  exist  if  there  is  any  possibility  of  their  reappearing 
in  actuality,  because  here  the  possibility  is  not  an  abstract  and 
undetermined  possibility  of  being  created  (which  in  the  case 
of  any  particular  object  approaches  zero,  since  the  number  of 
objects  that  can  be  created  is,  by  the  very  definition  of  crea- 
tion, unUmited),  but  a  concrete  and  determined  possibility  of 
being  revived,  which  for  any  particular  object  is  theoretically 
a  positive  quantity,  the  number  of  objects  that  can  be  revived 
being  always  limited.  Of  course,  like  every  other  actualiza- 
tion, the  revival  itself  is  a  creative  act,  for  it  always  brings  a 
new  variation  of  the  revived  object,  but  it  is  not  with  the 
variation,  only  with  the  object  which  will  include  this  varia- 
tion, that  we  are  here  concerned.  And  as  there  is  no  historical 
object  which,  once  created,  could  not  possibly  be  reconstructed 
under  some,  however  improbable,  conditions,  even  without 


138  CULTURAL  REALITY 

the  explicit  consciousness  of  its  having  been  created  before, 
there  is  no  historical  object  which,  once  created,  can  ever 
cease  to  exist,  even  if  as  a  matter  of  fact  it  never  is  revived 
after  it  once  disappears  from  the  domain  of  actual  human 
interests. 

There  is  a  prepossession  which  has  hindered  this  principle 
from  becoming  generally  recognized,  namely,  that  conscious- 
ness of  the  continuity  of  existence  is  necessary  for  the  conti- 
nuity of  the  existence  of  a  historical  object.  This  standpoint 
is  almost  always  more  or  less  clearly  taken  with  regard  to 
historical  objects  whose  existence  seems  to  depend  promi- 
nently on  human  individuals  or  societies.  It  is  imagined 
that  a  historical  object  can  be  simultaneously  the  same  for 
several  individuals  only  if  they  are  conscious  of  its  identity 
and  have  communicated  it  to  each  other,  that  when  two 
individuals  have  simultaneously  the  same  idea,  concrete 
remembrance,  or  concept  (for  usually  an  exception  is  made  for 
material  objects),  it  is  not  one,  but  two  ideas  which  become 
unified  only  when  each  individual  knows  about  the  other's 
having  it  and  refers  his  own  idea  to  the  other's.  In  the  same 
way  also  it  is  assumed  that  a  historical  object  cannot  be 
successively  the  same  for  two  individuals  unless  the  one  to 
whom  it  has  been  given  later  knows  that  it  was  given  before 
to  the  other  individuals,  and  it  is  this  knowledge  which  is 
implicitly  supposed  to  create  the  continuity  of  existence,  just 
as  when  two  individuals  have  at  a  different  moment  of  time 
the  same  idea  without  the  first  having  expressed  it  and  directly 
or  indirectly  communicated  it  to  the  second,  it  is  not  taken 
to  be  one,  but  two  ideas.  This  double  assumption  is  simply 
the  product  of  an  erroneous  interpretation  of  a  real  empirical 
fact.  The  historical  object,  whatever  it  be,  possesses  always, 
as  we  know,  a  certain  range  of  extension,  spreads  over  the 
spheres  of  experience  and  reflection  of  a  certain  number  of 
individuals.  Its  mere  objective  existence  as  element  of  a 
complex  is  not  affected  by  the  range  of  its  empirical  extension; 


EMPIRICAL  OBJECT  AND  HISTORICAL  REALITY  139 

it  exists  as  long  as  it  can  be  reproduced  with  this  complex, 
and  it  always  can.  But  its  actual  influence  on  other  objects, 
the  role  it  plays  in  the  concrete  historical  reality,  does  depend, 
of  course,  on  its  extension,  and  this  role  can  decrease  to 
approximately  zero  or  increase  indefinitely,  depending  on  the 
decrease  or  growth  of  the  extension  of  the  object.  Now,  a 
historical  object  increases  in  extension  by  being  introduced 
into  new  spheres  of  experience  and  reflection.  This  intro- 
duction may  proceed  empirically  in  various  ways,  but  its 
fundamental  mechanism  is  always  the  same.  A  certain 
object  which  belongs  to  the  spheres  of  experience  and  reflection 
of  some  individuals  living  now,  or  which  belonged  to  the 
spheres  of  experience  and  reflection  of  individuals  who  lived 
years  or  centuries  ago,  is  objectively  an  element  of  a  complex 
which  has  been  partly  experienced  and  reproduced  by  a 
certain  individual,  so  that  the  latter  is  already  acquainted 
with  other  elements  of  this  complex,  but  not  with  this  particu- 
lar one.  If,  now,  this  individual  reproduces  this  objective 
connection  between  the  objects  with  which  he  is  acquainted 
and  the  element  which  up  to  then  did  not  belong  to  his  sphere 
of  experience  and  reflection,  he  introduces  thereby  this  element 
into  his  actual  sphere  of  reality  as  objectively  the  same.  Of 
course,  this  object  may  have  for  him  a  somewhat  different 
content  and  meaning  than  for  others,  if  in  their  spheres  of 
reality  it  was  also  an  element  in  other  complexes  with  which 
this  individual  is  not  yet  acquainted.  Thus,  when  an  individ- 
ual approaches  a  new  locality,  the  material  objects  of  this 
locahty  become  gradually  introduced  into  his  sphere  of 
experience  and  reflection  and  any  material  object  which  was 
ever  given  to  others  can  be  given  to  him  because  of  its  connec- 
tions. By  getting  acquainted  with  the  pictures  on  Egyptian 
walls  he  can  reconstruct  many  of  the  values  which  were  con- 
nected in  the  past  with  these  pictures.  By  introducing  into 
the  spheres  of  his  experience  and  reflection  certain  technical 
problems  he  may  repeat,  without  knowing  it,  an  invention 


I40  CULTURAL  REALITY 

which  the  same  problems  have  suggested  to  others.  And  so 
on.  The  unknown  historical  object  can  be  given  whenever 
known  and  given  objects,  directly  or  indirectly,  suggest  it, 
owing  to  their  pre-established  connections.  And  since  there 
are  innumerable  connections  between  an  object  and  other 
objects  of  the  historical  reality,  innumerable  complexes  more 
or  less  interfering  with  each  other,  there  are  for  an  individual 
many  ways  of  reaching  a  certain  unknown  object  and  each 
known  object  may  lead  to  the  rediscovery  of  many  others. 

Now,  the  mechanism  of  social  communication  only  makes 
this  process  more  rapid  and  better  organized:  it  permits  an 
individual  to  suggest  to  others  at  once  such  definite  objects 
as  he  wants  to  suggest  among  all  the  objects  with  which  he  is 
acquainted  and  others  are  not,  and  vice  versa ;  it  permits  him 
to  reproduce  at  once  in  his  sphere  such  objects  as  are  suggested 
to  him  among  those  with  which  others  are  acquainted  and  he 
is  not.  Thanks  to  social  symbols,  words,  or  signs,  the  exten- 
sion of  historical  objects  to  new  spheres  of  experience  and 
reflection  becomes  intentional  and  selective,  whereas  without 
organized  communication  it  is  a  matter  of  chance,  depends 
on  the  question  whether  among  the  many  suggestions  which 
actually  given  objects  offer  to  an  individual  he  happens  to 
follow  the  one  which  will  lead  him  to  the  discovery  of  a  certain 
personally  unknown  object.  But  the  existence  of  this  inten- 
tionally organized  passage  of  objects  from  the  sphere  of 
experience  and  reflection  of  one  individual  to  that  of  another 
presupposes  the  unintentional  reproduction  of  objects  as 
given  to  one  individual  by  another  individual;  social  com- 
munication, far  from  being  the  ground  of  the  inter-individual 
community  of  objects,  is  entirely  founded  upon  this  com- 
munity. 

This  is  usually  recognized  with  regard  to  material  objects, 
since  it  is  quite  evident  that  symbols  could  not  be  the 
vehicle  of  social  communication,  if  the  community  of  their 
sensual  content  were  not  independent  of  social  communica- 


EMPIRICAL  OBJECT  AND  HISTORICAL  REALITY         141 

tion,  if  each  individual  could  not,  on  the  ground  of  his  own 
sphere  of  reality,  experience  and  reproduce  them  by  himself; 
and  it  is  equally  evident  that  no  social  co-operation  in  the 
material  world  would  be  possible  if  this  world  were  not  at 
least  in  its  essential  features  common  to  the  co-operating 
individuals  without  their  needing  to  construct  this  community 
for  every  common  action  with  the  help  of  social  communica- 
tion. Now,  the  same  must  be  true  of  all  objects;  sensual 
contents  are  not  privileged  in  this  respect.  In  order  to  have 
a  myth,  an  idea,  an  economic  value,  a  political  or  moral  rule, 
communicated  to  me,  I  must  be  able  to  reproduce  them 
on  the  ground  of  my  own  experience  and  reflection;  I  must 
have  within  my  own  sphere  of  reahty  the  possibiHty  of 
reconstructing  for  myself  the  same  cultural  objects  with 
which  others  are  already  acquainted,  otherwise  the  help 
offered  by  social  symbols  would  be  lost  for  me;  these  symbols 
would  not  mean  to  me  the  same  objects  as  they  mean  to 
others.  Whether  I  reproduce  these  objects  before  or  after 
their  reproduction  has  been  suggested  to  me  by  other  individ- 
uals, whether  in  reproducing  them  I  am  conscious  that  others 
are  already  acquainted  with  them  or  not,  has  no  importance 
whatever  for  the  question  of  their  being  the  same  objects  for 
all  of  us.  They  are  the  same  whether  I  know  it  or  not,  if 
their  contents  and  meanings  in  my  experience  are  sufficiently 
similar  to  the  contents  and  meanings  they  have  in  the  expe- 
rience of  others.  Social  communication  can,  indeed,  help 
me  to  make  my  view  of  the  object  more  similar  to  that  of 
others  by  suggesting  to  me  how  I  should  determine  this  object 
to  make  it  similar;  but  this  suggestion  would  be  useless  if  I 
could  not  determine  it  Hke  others  in  any  case,  if  I  did  not 
possess  in  my  spheres  of  experience  and  reflection  all  that  is 
necessary  to  reconstruct  the  complex  in  which  this  new  object 
will  acquire  a  character  similar  to  that  which  it  possesses  for 
others.  The  consciousness  that  this  object  as  given  to  me 
and  reproduced  by  me  is  the  same  as  the  object  experienced 


142  CULTURAL  REALITY 

and  reproduced  by  others  presupposes  thus  that  the  object 
can  be  the  same  without  my  being  conscious  of  its  identity 
in  our  respective  experiences. 

Further,  cultural  objects  in  the  narrower  sense  of  the  term 
— scientific,  aesthetic,  religious,  moral,  political,  economic — 
can  be  just  as  well  the  object-matter  of  social  co-operation  as 
natural  reality;  and  though  an  intentional  and  organized 
co-operation  requires  in  both  cases  that  each  individual  be 
conscious  of  his  reality's  being  the  same  as  the  reality  of 
others,  all  co-operation,  organized  or  not,  would  be  impossible 
if  the  objects  were  not  common  independently  of  actual  social 
communication,  and  if  thus  each  individual  could  not  find  in 
objects  as  given  to  him  the  modifications  which  other  individ- 
uals, with  or  without  his  knowledge,  have  produced  in  these 
objects,  and  if  vice  versa  the  modifications  produced  by  him 
could  not  appear  in  the  experience  of  others  whether  the  latter 
knew  or  not  who  was  the  author.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  in  the 
very  beginning  of  social  communication  we  do  not  even  assume 
that  there  are  differences  between  objects  as  given  to  other 
individuals  and  objects  as  given  to  us;  we  have  to  learn  this, 
and  we  are  still  learning.  The  ground  on  which  we  begin  to 
communicate  is  the  general  assumption  of  a  universal  and  com- 
plete identity  of  objects  for  all  conscious  beings,  and  it  is  only 
gradually  that  we  qualify  it.  The  philosophical  and  sociolo- 
gical theories  of  social  communication  and  of  the  continuity  of 
culture  as  due  to  social  tradition  invert  the  original  empirical 
situation,  because  they  try  to  interpret  it  in  the  light  of  the 
supposition  that  human  individuals  are  as  many  distinct, 
closed,  and  impenetrable  minds  within  which  all  objects,  or 
at  least  non-material  objects,  are  supposed  to  be  inclosed  and 
whose  communication  becomes  a  fundamental,  and  in  fact 
an  insoluble,  problem. 

Existence,  as  the  common  character  of  all  objects  which 
have  ever  been  given  in  the  past  and  can  therefore  be  given 
again  with  their  once  acquired  content  and  meaning,  appUes 


EMPIRICAL  OBJECT  AND  HISTORICAL  REALITY  143 

equally  to  all  of  them,  whether  they  happen  or  not  to  be  within 
the  sphere  of  present  activities.  But  this  is  not  so  with  respect 
to  their  ''being  real,"  their  "realness,"  as  we  may  call  the 
character  which  an  object  possesses  as  a  part  of  reahty.  The 
object  is  real,  as  we  know,  not  because  of  the  mere  fact  of  its 
existence  within  the  domain  of  actual  or  possible  experience, 
but  because  of  the  significance  which  this  existence  has  both 
for  active  thought  and  for  other  objects.  What  makes 
therefore  a  concrete  object  empirically  real  is  not  its  having 
been  produced  by  old  activities,  but  its  being  now  the  starting- 
point  for  new  activities.  Realness  is  not  the  retrospective, 
but  the  prospective  side  of  an  object;  it  depends  indeed  on 
the  past,  on  the  connections  already  established  between  the 
object  and  other  objects,  but  depends  on  them  only  with 
regard  to  the  future,  in  so  far  as  those  connections  are  the 
ground  for  new  acts.  For  it  is  clear  that  the  more  frequently 
an  object  appears  in  actuality  and  the  wider  grows  the  sphere 
of  its  extension,  the  greater  becomes  also  the  number  and 
variety  of  new  activities  of  which  it  is  the  object-matter,  the 
greater  its  actual,  not  merely  potential,  significance  for  active 
thought  and  its  influence  on  other  objects.  And  thus,  while 
existence  admits  no  gradations,  there  are  innumerable  possible 
degrees  of  realness,  though  of  course  whatever  exists  has  some 
degree  of  realness,  however  slight,  however  approaching  zero, 
for  there  are  no  existing  objects  without  any  reference  what- 
ever, even  though  only  distant  and  mediate,  to  the  present 
sphere  of  reality  of  some  conscious  beings. 

While  existence,  once  acquired,  is  never  lost,  realness 
does  not  stay  changeless,  but  either  increases  or  decreases 
indefinitely.  Its  increase  is  the  direct  effect  of  the  actual 
growth  of  an  object  in  extension,  of  its  introduction  into  new 
spheres  of  reahty.  When,  on  the  contrary,  an  object  ceases  to 
enter  into  new  connections,  other  objects  take  its  place  in  the 
center  of  active  interest,  and  not  only  it  does  not  become  the 
object-matter  of  new  actions,  but  even  old  actions  cease  to  be 


144  CULTURAL  REALITY 

actually  repeated,  its  importance  for  activity  and  its  influence 
upon  other  objects  decrease.  This  may  be  the  effect  either 
of  that  removal  of  the  object  from  a  certain  system  of  reality 
which  is  destruction  proper,  or  of  simple  oblivion,  that  is,  of 
other  objects  and  groups  of  objects  actively  taking  the  center 
of  present  experience  and  reflection.  What  is  destroyed  in 
both  cases  is  neither  the  content  nor  the  meaning  of  the  object, 
but  some  of  its  realness. 

It  may  happen  also  that  an  object  which  loses  some  real- 
ness in  a  certain  domain  continues  to  acquire  some  in  another 
domain,  that  while  a  certain  side  of  its  content  and  meaning 
ceases  to  be  the  object-matter  of  new  activities,  another  side 
develops  even  more  intensely  than  before.  Thus,  an  object 
that  has  lost  some  of  its  material  realness  by  physical  destruc- 
tion may  continue  to  exist  chiefly  as  a  mythological,  or  aes- 
thetic, or  scientific  value.  We  know,  for  example,  that  in 
myths  which  have  material  realness  as  their  basis  the  partial 
destruction  of  this  realness  is  often  a  necessary  condition  of 
the  development  of  the  myth,  and  the  time  is  not  very  remote 
when  only  happenings  and  personahties  which  had  ceased  to 
be  materially  real  were  considered  the  proper  objects  of  poetry. 

This  possibility  for  an  object  to  increase  in  realness  in  one 
line  after  the  destruction  of  a  part  of  its  realness  in  another 
helps  us  to  understand  how  it  is  that,  while  within  any  particu- 
lar real  complex  creation  may  be  balanced  by  destruction  or 
the  latter  may  prevail  altogether,  the  whole  concrete  historical 
reality  is  ceaselessly  and  indefinitely  growing.  And  the  very 
rate  of  this  growth  increases  in  the  measure  in  which  organized, 
systematic,  intentional  creation  of  new  objects  becomes 
gradually  superadded  to  the  primary  unorganized  develop- 
ment of  contents  and  meanings  due  to  those  innumerable, 
often  insignificant,  but  continually  agglomerating  variations 
which  all  acts  of  thought  add  to  the  reahty  that  is  their 
object-matter. 


CHAPTER  IV 
THE  PRACTICAL  ORGANIZATION  OF  REALITY 

THE   METHOD 

The  concrete  historical  reality,  as  it  has  been  determined 
in  the  preceding  sections,  is  evidently  neither  the  reality  of 
common-sense  reflection  nor  that  of  science.  The  chief 
feature  of  both  the  common-sense  reality  and  the  scientific 
reality  which  we  miss  in  concrete  historical  reality  is  rationahty 
of  objects  and  of  happenings,  for  in  concrete  reality  rationality 
is  reduced  to  its  minimum,  that  is,  to  the  possibihty  of  objec- 
tively reproducing  by  thought  each  particular  determination 
of  an  object  and  each  particular  connection  between  objects 
within  a  complex,  and  even  this  only  approximately,  without 
any  subordination  of  these  determinations  and  connections  to 
fundamental  principles.  The  world  of  historical  objects 
taken  in  its  concrete  totality  or  any  concrete  fragment  of  this 
world  is  an  irrational  chaos,  and  this  chaotic  character  appears 
most  clearly  when  contrasted  with  the  perfect  rational  har- 
mony of  a  world  conceived  as  an  Aristotelian  system  of  time- 
less "essences"  or  a  mechanistic  system  of  eternal  laws  ruling 
all  becoming  with  iron  necessity.  However  exaggerated  such 
conceptions  may  be,  the  fact  that  they  have  ever  been  con- 
structed and  accepted  shows  that  there  must  be  in  empirical 
reaHty  more  rational  organization  than  this  minimal  rational- 
ity of  single  determinations  and  connections  which  we  have 
assumed.  We  have  been  forced  by  the  demands  of  philo- 
sophical method  abstractly  to  ignore  in  the  first  part  of  our 
investigation  any  rational  order  beyond  that  necessary  mini- 
mum; now  it  is  time  to  study  the  origin  and  character  of  any 
superior  rationahty  which  reahty  may  possess.     Admitting 

I4S 


146  CULTURAL  REALITY 

therefore  that  empirical  reality  is  primarily  and  fundamentally 
a  world  of  historical  objects,  we  may  now  ask:  "How  did  the 
common-sense  reality  and  the  scientific  reality  originate  out 
of  this  concrete  world,  what  part  do  they  play  in  it,  how  much 
objectivity  do  they  possess,  and  what  are  their  essential 
characters  as  viewed  from  the  standpoint  of  complete  histor- 
ical experience?" 

Here  we  meet  again,  as  in  our  last  chapter,  several  prob- 
lems of  method.  First  of  all,  as  against  the  realistic  assump- 
tion of  a  perfect  rational  order  originally  inherent  in  reahty, 
we  find  the  idealistic  claim  that  reality  of  itself,  even  if 
it  has  any  existence  independently  of  thought,  has  no  rational 
order  whatever  except  while  and  in  so  far  as  it  is  an  actual 
object-matter  of  thought;  the  latter  is  then,  in  objective 
ideahsm,  conceived  as  being  a  universally  and  timelessly 
actual,  absolute  reason,  in  order  to  account  for  the  fact  that 
individual  thought  finds  some  rational  organization  in  reality 
independent  of  its  own  actual  performances.  The  methodo- 
logical problem  implied  in  this  opposition  is  evident.  If  all 
organization  of  reality  is  objectively  inherent  in  it,  we  shall 
have  to  study  only  systems  of  reality  in  themselves  without 
caring  for  thought,  which  can  do  nothing  but  copy  the  pre- 
existing order;  if,  on  the  contrary,  all  organization  of  reality 
exists  only  as  actually  produced  by  thought,  we  must  investi- 
gate systems  of  thought  to  reach  the  essence  of  the  real  order. 

However,  neither  of  these  methods  would  be  adequate. 
For,  on  the  one  hand,  our  investigation  of  real  objects  and  their 
connections  has  shown  that,  even  when  an  objective  real 
complex  already  exists  before  some  particular  activity  which 
reproduces  it  now  and  here,  this  actual  reproduction  not  only 
is  necessary  to  have  the  complex  actually  given  to  the  individ- 
ual as  objectively  real,  but  influences  in  some,  however  small, 
measure  the  complex  in  its  objective  reality,  and  every 
empirical  complex,  however  wide  and  stable,  however  real 
it  may  be  now,  has  originated  and  grown  because  of  the 


PRACTICAL  ORGANIZATION  OF  REALITY  147 

agglomerated  results  of  past  activities.  This  is  true  of  any 
real  complex  in  so  far  as  empirical,  independently  of  the 
degree  of  rational  organization  it  may  possess.  On  the  other 
hand,  any  complex  produced  by  actual  thought  exists  after- 
ward, as  we  have  seen,  beyond  actuahty  and  influences  more 
or  less  future  activities  by  the  objective  realness  which  it  has 
acquired.  Since  there  is  no  formal  difference  between  active 
thought  as  producing  a  new  real  complex  and  active  thought 
as  reproducing  a  pre-existing  complex,  and  the  same  organiza- 
tion of  reality  which  has  been  once  produced  by  thought  can 
afterward  impose  itself  on  thought  as  existing  in  itself,  a 
system  of  objects  is  thus,  even  when  first  produced,  a  system 
of  reality,  not  a  system  of  thought.  Therefore  our  method  of 
investigating  the  rational  organization  of  reality  can  be  neither 
realistic  nor  idealistic:  in  studying  real  systems  we  must  take 
into  account  active  thought  which  produces  and  reproduces 
them,  but  we  must  take  it  into  account  not  in  itself,  but  in  its 
real  results,  not  with  regard  to  its  own  logical  order  to  which  it 
subjects  itself  in  the  course  of  its  actual  development,  but 
with  regard  to  the  rational  organization  of  reality  which  it 
leaves  after  its  actual  performance. 

The  second  important  methodological  point  concerns  the 
relation  between  the  rational  organization  of  reality  and  the 
irrational  chaos  of  the  real  world  taken  in  its  historical  con- 
creteness.  Most  of  the  philosophies  which  treat  reality  as 
originally  unorganized,  and  rational  organization  as  super- 
imposed by  logical  thought  upon  the  original  chaos,  assume 
explicitly  or  implicitly  that  reality  in  so  far  as  already  objec- 
tivated  and  distinguished  from  mere  subjective  data,  that 
is,  the  reality  with  which  our  practical  or  theoretic  reflec- 
tion deals,  is  always  perfectly  and  equally  rational.  The 
old  realistic  conception  of  one  absolute  reality  is  still  aHve, 
even  in  the  most  radical  idealism.  Irrationahty  is  readily 
granted  to  subjective  data,  and  idealism  willingly  assumes 
that  the  empirical  matter  of  reahty  is  entirely  constituted  by 


148  CULTURAL  REALITY 

subjective  data;  but,  in  so  far  as  objective  reality  has  been  built 
out  of  these  data  by  giving  them  a  rational  form,  it  is  supposed 
to  possess  a  perfect  rational  order,  and  if  irrationality  slips 
into  our  empirical  reproductions  of  this  order,  as  it  often  does, 
it  is  assumed  to  have  its  source  not  in  the  imperfect  rationality 
of  the  objects  and  systems  of  objects,  but  exclusively  in  the 
fact  that  we  empirical  individuals,  because  of  the  imper- 
fections of  our  reasons,  mix  subjective  data  into  this  rational 
order  of  objects.  How  deeply  this  traditional  prepossession 
is  rooted  is  shown  by  the  example  of  Bergson  who,  even  while 
Hmiting  the  objective  validity  of  traditional  rationalism, 
still  sees  in  the  chaos  of  experience  a  problem  to  be  solved,  and 
attempts  to  solve  it  by  assuming,  just  as  the  German  idealists, 
a  duality  of  orders  which  produce  an  appearance  of  disorder 
for  us  because  we  do  not  distinguish  them  sufficiently. 

It  is  clear  that  under  the  assumption  that  reality  must  be 
either  rationally  perfect  or  not  be  reality  at  all,  but  subjective 
data,  the  distinction  between  the  original  irrationality  of 
reality  and  its  rational  organization  has  no  empirical  sig- 
nificance, is  a  purely  formal  philosophical  analysis  of  reality 
into  two  abstract  components  which  necessarily  and  indis- 
solubly  belong  together.  All  irrationality  in  experience  is  sup- 
posed completely  overcome  when  we  pass  from  experience  to 
reality.  The  only  task  of  philosophy,  by  which  its  method  is 
determined,  consists  then  in  defining  the  one  perfect  order, 
or  sometimes  the  two  perfect  orders,  which  constructs  reality 
by  overcoming  the  irrationality  of  experience. 

But  our  investigation  of  empirical  reality  in  the  preceding 
chapter  has  led  us  to  the  conclusion  that  irrationahty  belongs 
to  objective  reaHty  itself,  not  only  to  its  subjective  reproduc- 
tion, because  between  subjectivity  and  objectivity,  between 
irrationality  and  rationality,  between  chaos  and  order,  the 
passage  is  continuous;  absolute  objectivity,  absolute  ration- 
ahty,  absolute  order,  represent  the  highest  limit,  absolute 
subjectivity,  absolute  irrationality,  absolute  chaos,  the  lowest 


PRACTICAL  ORGANIZATION  OF  REALITY  149 

limit,  and  it  is  between  these  limits  that  empirical  reality  fully 
exists  as  concrete  reality,  not  as  mere  approximation  to  reality; 
and  we  have  seen  that  to  be  reality,  it  needs  only  to  be  above 
the  lowest,  not  on  the  highest,  limit.  Objective  rational 
order  may  indeed  increase  for  certain  parts  of  the  concrete 
reahty  in  various  proportions,  and  for  a  few  parts  it  may  even 
approach  to  the  highest  Umit;  but  this  growth  of  rationality 
remains  within  the  total  historical  concreteness  and  leaves  a 
wide  margin  or  irrationality  which  may  perhaps — we  cannot 
tell  now  whether  it  does  or  not — diminish,  but  can  never 
disappear.  A  rationally  organized  reality  demands  (i)  a 
rational  determination  of  each  single  object  within  a  system- 
atically organized  complex;  (2)  a  rational  organization  of 
each  particular  system;  (3)  a  synthesis  of  many  systems  under 
one  common  rational  order.  But  none  of  these  demands  can 
be  ever  fully  realized  in  the  empirical  world,  for  each 
encounters  a  particular  difficulty  which  it  can  never  completely 
overcome. 

First  of  all,  we  have  seen  that  no  concrete  empirical  object 
is  entirely  devoid  of  the  character  of  subjective  datum;  it  is 
indubitably  objective,  but  it  never  can  lose  all  dependence  on 
subjective  experience.  And  because  it  always  still  roots  in 
subjectivity,  it  cannot  as  object  ever  rationally  be  exhausted  in 
any  system,  however  completely  the  latter  seems  to  determine 
it;  it  will  always  be  incorporated  into  many  other,  old  or  new, 
actually  reconstructed  or  constructed  complexes,  and  will  be 
thus  concretely  an  irrational  historical  object.  Being  com- 
posed of  such  objects,  concrete  reality  cannot  be  fully  rational, 
however  perfectly  organized  and  unified  its  systems  may  be. 

Further,  however  rational  may  be  the  systematic  organiza- 
tion of  any  particular  complex  of  objects,  this  organization 
evidently  cannot  exhaust  the  complex  in  its  empirical  con- 
creteness. For  we  know  that  each  actual  reproduction  of  the 
complex  modifies  the  latter,  even  if  in  only  a  slight  measure. 
As  a  part  of  concrete  historical  reality,  the  complex  remains 


I50  CULTURAL  REALITY 

for  US  the  same  with  all  its  modifications,  as  long  as  we  want  to 
treat  it  as  the  same,  for  all  the  personal  variations  added  to  it 
during  its  reproduction  can  belong  to  it  without  destroying  its 
unity,  since  it  does  not  need  to  be  in  any  particular  way  self- 
consistent  except  in  so  far  as  it  claims  to  be  systematically 
organized.  But  such  variations  are  necessarily  excluded  from 
its  systematic  organization,  which  by  its  rational  nature  must 
be  absolutely  self-identical.  An  empirical  complex  may  be  a 
rational  system,  even  an  almost  perfectly  organized  one,  but 
it  will  be  also  a  concrete  complex,  transcending  its  systematic 
organization  by  its  concreteness ;  it  will  include  besides  the 
objects  and  connections  demanded  by  its  systematic  rational- 
ity other  objects  and  connections  which  may  not  at  all  har- 
monize with  these  demands.  Historically,  this  impossibility 
to  cover  any  concrete  empirical  complex  by  a  systematic 
organization  manifests  itself  very  well  in  the  fact  that  no 
rational  system  can  last  empirically  without  special  efforts  to 
maintain  its  organization,  for  every  one  of  them  evolves  as 
consequence  of  the  additions  which  it  undergoes  in  varying 
reproductions  and  after  a  time  we  find  instead  of  the  original 
system  an  empirical  complex  to  which  a  completely  different 
systematic  organization  must  be  given  because  the  old  one 
no  longer  corresponds  to  its  empirical  reality. 

As  to  the  synthesis  of  many  empirical  systems  under  a  com- 
mon rational  order,  it  is  evident  that  without  such  a  synthesis 
reality  would  remain  irrational,  even  though  each  particular 
system  were  perfectly  rational ;  for  the  systems  would  be  discon- 
nected and  incommensurable  with  each  other ;  each  would  have 
an  entirely  different,  unique  rationality.  But,  as  we  shall  see 
in  detail  later  on,  no  rational  synthesis  of  empirical  systems 
can  entirely  overcome  their  variety;  each  system  in  so  far 
as  it  is  empirically  distinct  is  in  some  measure  different  from 
others,  has  some  exclusive  rationality  of  its  own,  some  pecu- 
liarity in  the  way  in  which  it  is  organized,  which  is  irreducible 
to  any  common  order.     Therefore,  even  if  there  should  be  one 


PRACTICAL  ORGANIZATION  OF  REALITY  151 

general  order  common  to  all  reality,  still  within  the  limits  of 
this  order,  reality  would  in  some  measure  be  a  chaos  of  systems, 
besides  being,  as  we  have  seen,  a  chaos  of  objects.  This 
irrationality  resulting  from  the  variety  of  systems  would  be 
completely  overcome  only  if  the  whole  reality  were  one 
system  of  objects  in  which  all  empirically  given  systems  were 
absorbed.  But  such  an  assumption,  which  is  essentially  that 
of  Spinoza,  evidently  contradicts  experience. 

The  rationality  of  the  real  world  is  thus  not  an  absolute 
order,  with  logical  necessity  imposed  at  once  by  reason  upon 
reality.  It  is  an  empirical,  partial  organization  of  concrete 
reality  and  must  itself  develop  in  duration  and  extension 
within  the  wider  concrete  development  of  the  historical  world; 
it  tends  continually  to  mold  empirical  reahty  in  accordance 
with  its  own  demands,  but  never  succeeds  in  penetrating  and 
ordering  that  chaos  on  the  ground  of  which  it  has  appeared 
and  grown,  cannot  impose  any  of  its  demands,  however  small 
or  great  the  latter  may  be,  completely  and  unconditionally. 
Instead  of  speaking  of  the  rationality  of  the  real  world,  it 
would  be  more  exact  to  speak  of  its  progressive  rationalization. 

From  this  results  the  fact  that  in  investigating  the  rational 
organization  of  reality  we  must  follow  the  method  of  genetic 
construction.  The  passage  from  that  minimum  of  rationality 
which  we  have  assumed  in  the  preceding  chapter  to  the  highest 
level  of  order  which  empirical  reahty  can  attain,  must  be  made 
step  by  step,  following  the  different  stages  of  comprehensive- 
ness and  rational  perfection  which  the  real  empirical  systems 
and  groups  of  systems  found  in  our  historical  reahty  actually 
possess.  We  cannot,  however,  assume  generally  that  the 
logical  hierarchy  of  these  different  stages  corresponds  to  the 
order  of  their  historical  development,  that  the  entire  reahty 
which  is  being  rationahzed  had  to  pass  first  through  all  lower 
stages  of  rational  organization  before  a  higher  stage  could 
appear  at  all.  For  if  it  is  clear  that  in  any  continuous  line  of 
development  a  higher  stage  cannot  be  reached  until  the  lower 


152  CULTURAL  REALITY 

ones  have  been  passed,  still  there  may  be  in  the  evolution  of 
reality  many  continuous  hues  of  development  independent  of 
each  other,  and  rational  organization  may  be  more  highly 
developed  in  certain  domains  of  reality  than  in  others. 

The  third  methodological  problem  is  connected  with  the 
respective  roles  of  theoretic  and  non-theoretic  activities  in 
organizing  concrete  reality.  This  problem  is  important  be- 
cause of  the  old  intellectualistic  prepossession  according  to 
which  all  thought,  in  so  far  as  bearing  upon  reality,  is  ulti- 
mately reducible  to  theoretic  thought;  that  is,  whenever  our 
thought  gets  in  touch  with  objective  reality,  there  is  some, 
however  rudimentary,  knowledge.  We  find  this  prepossession 
implied  even  in  such  philosophies  as  those  which  explicitly 
recognize  the  priority  of  "practical"  activity,  meaning  by 
this  term,  activity  which  tends  to  modify  its  objects  really. 
Thus,  in  Bergsonism  practical  activity  is  treated  as  funda- 
mentally possessing  the  same  kind  of  objective  bearing  as 
theoretic  activity,  so  that  any  objective  order  which  science 
or  philosophy  accepts  is  already  involved  in  practical  experi- 
ence; in  certain  varieties  of  pragmatism,  practical  activity  is 
supposed  to  use  theoretic  thought  whenever  it  rises  above 
personal  data  and  associations  of  data  and  opposes  reality  to 
itself,  so  that  whenever  there  is  objective  reahty  given  as  such 
there  is  knowledge. 

But  we  have  seen  already  that  not  only  theoretic  activity, 
but  all  activity  bears  upon  objective  reality  as  conscious 
thought  upon  its  object-matter.  Reality  is  accessible  to  our 
reflection  even  without  being  the  object-matter  of  our  knowl- 
edge, for  reflection  means  not  only  theoretic  reflection,  but  all 
actual  thought  which  objectivates  data  as  contents  and  incor- 
porates them  into  complexes.  It  needs  indeed  logically 
organized  thought  in  order  to  organize  reality  rationally;  but 
we  find  logical  thought  wherever  there  is  selection  of  objects 
and  standards  of  vaUdity,  and  there  are  other  types  of  selection 
than  those  based  on  theoretic  ideas,  other  standards  of  validity 


PRACTICAL  ORGANIZATION  OF  REALITY  153 

than  those  of  theoretic  logic.  Non-theoretic  activities  are 
therefore  perfectly  able  to  create  a  rational  organization  of 
objects  without  the  help  of  theoretic  reflection,  though,  as  we 
shall  see  later  on,  the  latter  greatly  facilitates  this  task.  The 
very  fact  that  the  practical  importance  of  theoretic  ideas  is 
tested  by  practical  activity  proves  that  there  is  in  the  real 
world  some  rationality  independent  of  theoretic  reflection  and 
which  thus  can  be  only  the  product  of  practical  activity  work- 
ing alone.  Whatever  may  be  the  part  of  knowledge  in  ration- 
alizing the  world,  it  certainly  finds  at  every  step  some  objective 
systematic  order  ready  and  constructed  without  its  participa- 
tion. On  a  high  stage  of  culture  we  do  see  indeed  the  practical 
organization  of  reality  mostly  developing  planfully,  with  the 
help  of  theoretic  generalization  and  abstraction,  but  this  de- 
velopment is  preceded  by  and  grafted  upon  a  much  slower 
and  less  critical  development  of  rationality  under  the  influence 
of  activities  which  make  little  if  any  use  of  knowledge,  and 
such  activities  are  still  continually  going  on  all  around  us; 
theoretically  controlled  practice  is  still  only  a  current  in  the 
sea  of  non-controlled  practice. 

It  is  this  pre-scientific  rationality  which  we  must  study 
first  of  all  before  we  pass  to  the  investigation  of  the  rational 
order  which  science  tends  to  impose  upon  the  world,  whether 
directly  or  through  the  intermediary  of  the  practical  activity 
which  it  controls.  For  even  if  historically  knowledge  had 
developed  simultaneously  with  practice,  which  it  evidently 
did  not,  there  would  be  still  two  reasons  for  which  the  study 
of  the  practical  organization  of  reality  would  be  logically  prior 
to  that  of  its  theoretic  order.  The  first  reason  is  impHed  in 
what  we  have  just  said,  that  knowledge  in  so  far  as  applied  in 
practice  finds  already  some  pre-existing  rationality,  and  we 
cannot  understand  the  part  it  plays  in  controlhng  practical 
activity  without  knowing  what  is  this  rationality  with  which 
theoretic  control  has  to  count.  The  second  reason  is  con- 
tained in  the  very  nature  of  knowledge  as  historical  product: 


154  CULTURAL  REALITY 

whatever  may  be  the  order  which  knowledge  when  ready 
imposes  upon  its  object-matter,  knowledge  itself  is  also  a  part 
of  the  historical  reality,  the  ideas  which  constitute  its  body  are 
also  historical  objects,  and  the  activity  of  which  these  ideas 
are  the  results  is  not  only  a  theoretic  activity  in  so  far  as  it 
knows  other  objects,  but  is  also  a  practical  activity  in  so  far 
as  it  produces  and  modifies  these  particular  objects  called 
theoretic  ideas.  It  is  impossible  to  understand  the  theoretic 
order  which  systems  of  ideas  give  to  the  reality  upon  which 
they  bear,  which  they  "know,"  without  having  investigated 
first  their  own  rational  organization  which,  as  a  product  of 
practical  activity,  must  possess  all  the  fundamental  char- 
acters which  practical  activity  gives  to  its  object-matter 
independently  of  theoretic  reflection.  For  systems  of  ideas, 
just  as  any  practical  systems,  can  be  produced  without  a 
reflective  theoretic  control  of  the  practical  activity  which 
produces  them;  this  control,  in  the  form  of  scientific  self- 
criticism  and  philosophical  reflection  about  methods,  appears 
here  as  late  or  even  later  than  in  other  practical  fields. 

We  start  therefore,  in  accordance  with  the  methodical 
principles  established  above,  by  studying  the  practical 
organization  of  reality  as  a  product  of  active  organizing 
thought  gradually  developing  from  lower  to  higher,  that  is, 
from  less  to  more  comprehensive  and  rationally  perfect  forms. 

THE    SYSTEM   OF   OBJECTS   IN   THE    COURSE    OF   ITS   ACTUAL 
CONSTRUCTION 

It  should  be  remembered  that  whatever  rational  organiza- 
tion there  may  be  in  reahty,  whether  narrow  or  comprehensive, 
imperfect  or  perfect,  the  organization  which  we  empirically 
find  is  always  the  one  given  by  us  to  the  systems  which  we  are 
constructing  in  actuality  from  actually  experienced  objects 
and  by  actual  reflection.  We  may  be  able  to  transcend  this 
actually  reahzed  rationality  by  extending  it,  also  through 
actual  reflection,  beyond  the  limits  of  the  system  which  we  are 


PRACTICAL  ORGANIZATION  OF  REALITY  155 

constructing,  by  practically  postulating  the  possibility  of  its 
application  to  other  empirical  complexes  and  realizing  this 
postulate.  We  may  be  also  able  to  turn  other  ready  systems 
into  objects,  to  treat  them  as  actually  given  contents  with 
actually  suggested  meanings,  and  thus  construct  in  actuality 
a  system  of  systems,  a  system  of  which  other  systems  are 
mere  elements  within  the  limit  of  present  activity.  But  we 
have  no  means  of  ever  discovering  any  rational  organization 
which  we  could  not  actually  construct  ourselves,  directly 
or  indirectly,  nor  even  of  ascertaining  whether  there  is  any 
such  rationality  transcending  the  possibilities  of  our  con- 
structive activity.  Of  course,  this  construction  is  usually  the 
reproduction  of  an  organization  which  preceded  our  present 
activity,  and  we  know  this  because  a  certain  way  of  system- 
atizing given  objects  often  suggests  itself  to  us  with  an  almost 
invincible  authority;  but  our  reproduction  is  always  active 
for  the  very  reason  that  it  is  actual;  it  always  implies  some 
possibilities,  however  slight,  of  not  exactly  following  the 
suggestion,  of  modifying  or  supplementing  the  system  which 
we  reproduce.  Between  reproducing  and  producing  there  is 
only  a  difference  of  degree  of  creativeness ;  but  reproduction 
and  production  both  equally  involve  actual  construction. 
Construction  being  the  only  way  of  bringing  systematic 
organization  into  experience,  constructive  activity,  more  or 
less  creative,  is  the  only  possible  source  of  all  empirical  ration- 
ality. The  only  systems  which  I  can  experience  are  the 
systems  which  I  can  actually  construct,  and  the  systems  which 
I  can  construct  are  either  created  now  or  have  been  already 
actually  created.  If  we  want  therefore  to  understand  the 
rational  organization  of  reality,  we  must  study  the  way  in 
which  rationality  is  created  by  the  activity  which  constructs 
systems  of  objects. 

We  have  seen  in  studying  the  object  that  any  connection 
whatever  actually  established  between  two  given  objects 
implies  an  actual  modification  of  these  objects,  a  new  variation 


156  CULTURAL  REALITY 

of  meaning  given  to  the  first  of  them  and  a  new  variation  of 
content  given  to  the  second.  In  a  word,  every  actual  con- 
nection between  objects  is  practical,  meaning  by  this  term, 
productive  of  some  reality.  The  actual  construction  or 
reconstruction  of  a  complex  of  objects  is  merely  a  series  of 
such  elementary  practical  connections.  Since  a  system  of 
objects  in  so  far  as  empirical  is  a  rationally  organized  com- 
plex, the  actual  organization  of  a  system  must  thus  be  also 
practical  in  its  essential  features.  The  difference  between  an 
unorganized  complex  and  a  rationally  organized  system  can 
manifest  itself  empirically,  in  the  course  of  their  actual  con- 
struction, only  by  a  practical  unity,  a  practical  order  which  the 
system  possesses  and  the  complex  lacks.  The  practical 
modifications  of  the  objects  composing  the  system  must  be 
subordinated  to  some  fundamental  modification  of  reahty 
produced  in  the  course  of  actual  experience  and  reflection,  and 
this  subordination  must  be  the  source  of  all  rational  organiza- 
tion of  the  system. 

Now,  there  is  only  one  way  in  which  such  a  subordination 
can  be  effected:  it  is  the  conscious  creation  of  a  new  object 
with  the  help  and  on  the  ground  of  pre-existing  objects,  which 
constitutes  the  task  of  every  intentional  activity.  For  the 
essential  feature  of  the  latter  is  that  it  tends  to  introduce,  with 
the  help  of  a  single,  more  or  less  multiform  but  unified,  series 
of  activities,  some  empirically  ascertainable  real  modification 
into  a  certain  sphere  of  the  empirical  reality;  that  it  tends  to 
produce  a  status  empirically  different  from  but  as  real  as  the 
status  which  constituted  its  starting-point.  This  new  status 
must  include  a  new  content — otherwise  it  would  not  be 
empirically  given;  and  a  new  meaning  connecting  this  content 
with  others — otherwise  it  could  not  be  real.  This  is  enough  to 
characterize  it,  within  the  limits  and  from  the  standpoint  of 
the  actual  organized  and  intentional  activity,  as  a  new  object, 
though  if  we  look  at  it  from  the  standpoint  of  the  whole 
concrete  empirical  reality  beyond  the  limits  of  the  actual 


PRACTICAL  ORGANIZATION  OF  REALITY  157 

intentional  activity,  it  may  be  either  a  mere  insignificant 
variation  of  some  already  existing  historical  object  or  a  whole 
system  of  objects  which  for  the  present  purpose  is  treated  as 
one  object;  and  the  creation  of  a  new  object  requires  the  use 
of  several  pre-existing  objects  as  concrete  real  ground,  whose 
partial  modifications  are  made  to  co-operate  in  producing  the 
content  and  the  meaning  of  this  new  object.  Intentional 
creation  requires  thus  a  selection  of  certain  particular  objects 
and  an  organization  of  actual  practical  connections  between 
these  objects  in  view  of  a  certain  common  result;  it  requires, 
in  a  word,  the  actual  formation  of  an  organization  of  objects. 
For  instance,  even  such  an  elementary  intentional  activity 
as  the  consmnption  of  food  creates  a  content  which  within  the 
limits  of  this  activity  is  new — the  set  of  experiences  which 
constitute  this  particular  "experience  of  satisfied  hunger." 
This  content  receives  a  definite  meaning  by  being  actually 
connected  with  the  body  as  given  to  the  acting  individual,  a 
meaning  which  characterizes  it  as  organically  real  and  dis- 
tinguishes it  from  a  merely  imagined  experience  of  satisfied 
hunger.  This  activity  clearly  needs  for  the  reaHzation  of  its 
intention,  for  the  production  of  this  relatively  new  object,  that 
several  pre-existing  objects  be  selected,  for  instance,  various 
parts  of  the  body  involved  in  the  perception,  apprehension, 
preparation,  and  consumption  of  food,  the  food  itself,  and 
probably  also  some  other  objects  within  the  individual's 
sphere  of  experience ;  and  it  needs  also  that  these  values  be  so 
connected  and  their  actual  modifications  so  combined  as  to 
produce  together  this  one  particular  result.  Or  take  an 
example  where  the  whole  question  appears  still  clearer,  the 
production  of  a  piece  of  furniture  by  a  carpenter.  Here  the 
new  content,  the  size,  shape,  color,  resistance,  weight,  etc.,  of 
the  piece  of  furniture,  has  to  be  determined  on  the  ground  of 
definite  previous  experiences,  by  analogy  or  contrast  with 
definite  existing  contents,  such  as  models,  properties  of  the 
raw  stuff  from  which  the  piece  of  furniture  is  to  be  composed, 


158  CULTURAL  REALITY 

etc.  This  content  acquires  the  meaning  of  a  physical  object 
by  all  the  connections  with  the  carpenter's  body,  his  instru- 
ments, his  materials,  his  environment,  etc.  All  these  objects 
necessary  to  give  the  new  object  its  sensual  content  and  its 
physical  reality  have  to  be  intentionally  selected  out  of  the 
whole  complexity  of  the  carpenter's  experience  and  actually 
organized  with  the  special  view  of  creating  this  one  particular 
object;  their  interconnection  for  the  given  practical  result  is 
superadded  to  all  other  connections  which  existed  between 
each  of  them  and  the  rest  of  empirical  reality,  and  thus 
without  ceasing  to  be  concrete  historical  objects,  they  become 
elements  of  a  specific  organization  within  which  they  are 
really  ordered  in  a  special  way. 

This  practical  actual  organization  of  objects  for  the 
creation  of  a  new  object  evidently  does  not  mean  that  active 
thought,  ignoring  the  concrete  chaos  of  empirical  reaHty, 
follows  a  pre-existing  and  ready  rational  system,  but  that  it 
gradually  evolves  a  rational  system  out  of  the  more  or  less 
chaotic  complex  or  group  of  complexes  empirically  given  to  it. 
At  any  stage  of  this  evolution  we  find  a  vague  empirical 
complex  within  which  some  rational  order  is  more  or  less 
definitively  outlined,  but  in  which  there  is  much  which  does  not 
belong  to  this  rational  order,  many  objects  that  are  not 
needed  for  the  production  of  this  particular  new  object  as 
already  determined,  many  connections  that  do  not  co-operate 
for  the  particular  result  which  is  intended.  Only  when  a 
certain  result  has  already  been  achieved,  when  the  activity 
has  been  finished,  we  can  say  in  looking  retrospectively  upon 
the  past  evolution  of  this  activity  that  it  has  selected  the  very 
objects  and  all  the  objects  necessary  to  produce  this  particular 
result;  that  it  has  organized  them  rationally  in  the  only  way 
by  which  this  result  could  be  obtained.  But  as  long  as  we  are 
actually  constructing  this  organization,  it  does  not  exist  for 
us  in  any  form  as  an  order  of  pure  reality  objectively  ready 
and  independent  of  our  experience  and  reflection :  it  has  to  be 


PRACTICAL  ORGANIZATION  OF  REALITY  159 

actively  produced  from  the  chaos  of  our  present  sphere  of 
concrete  empirical  reality.  This  holds  true  even  when  the 
organization  which  we  are  actually  constructing  is  merely 
a  reproduction  of  some  pre-existing  and  fixed  system;  the 
latter  can  actually  exist  for  us  as  a  system  only  by  being  gradu- 
ally built  within  that  part  of  the  concrete  historical  world 
which  is  actually  accessible  to  us,  thanks  to  an  active  selection 
of  objects  and  an  active  systematization  of  these  objects,  and 
this  selection  and  systematization  are  always  practical,  have 
always  some  actual  modification  of  our  reality  in  view.  And 
since  a  system,  however  perfect,  however  objective  and 
impersonal  it  may  be  when  taken  abstractly  and  exclusively 
in  its  objective  rational  order,  is  also  always  an  empirical 
complex;  it  is  dependent  on  its  actual  reproductions  for  the 
empirical  preservation  of  its  rationality  in  the  concrete 
evolution  of  the  historical  world.  In  other  words,  any 
rational  system  of  objects,  just  as  any  particular  object,  can 
be  historically  real,  can  remain  within  the  domain  of  actual 
interests  only  by  being  actually  reproduced;  otherwise, 
though  having  once  been  constructed  it  always  possesses 
existence,  it  gradually  loses  realness.  The  practical  organiza- 
tion of  objects  in  actuality  is  thus  both  the  source  of  new 
systems  and  the  ground  of  the  realness  of  old  systems.  We 
shall  take  it  here  in  its  first  role  with  regard  to  the  new  systems 
which  originate  in  it;  but  we  must  remember  that  it  remains 
always  the  empirical  background  of  every  one  of  those 
stabilized  and  more  or  less  perfect  existing  systems  whose 
internal  rationahty  we  are  going  to  investigate. 

The  essential  feature  of  all  actual  organization  of  objects 
is  thus  evidently  its  dynamic  character.  The  system  which 
activity  gradually  constructs  for  the  creation  of  a  new  object, 
including  this  new  object  itself,  is  evolving  in  its  totality 
during  the  whole  period  of  its  actual  formation.  In  so 
far  as  thus  evolving,  it  cannot  be  exactly  assimilated  to  any 
pre-existing  rational  organization  of  the  real  world;   it  is  not 


i6o  CULTURAL  REALITY 

a  part  of  an  objective  rational  reality.  On  the  contrary,  in 
order  to  be  incorporated  into  it,  objects  must  be  taken  out  of 
all  pre-existing  complexes,  rational  or  not,  to  which  they 
belong;  all  their  pre-existing  connections  must  be  ignored 
except  those  by  which  they  are  fit  to  become  the  elements  of 
the  actual  dynamic  organization,  and  which  ones  among  their 
connections  may  be  thus  utilized  for  the  present  purpose  can 
be  discovered  only  by  actually  reproducilig  them.  We  must 
therefore,  in  studying  the  actual  dynamic  organization  of 
objects,  carefully  avoid  the  error  of  ascribing  to  it  such 
characters  as  only  ready  systems  can  possess. 

Thus,  first  of  all,  it  must  be  realized  that,  though  the 
actually  estabhshed  organization  of  objects  impHes  inten- 
tionality,  it  does  not  imply  finality.  The  latter  develops 
indeed  by  degrees,  and  we  shall  follow  its  development;  but 
it  develops  on  the  ground  of  the  former  under  certain  special 
conditions.  All  we  mean  by  calling  a  certain  activity  inten- 
tional is  that  it  makes  such  a  selection  among  the  objects 
which  are  its  object-matter  and  gives  to  the  selected  objects 
such  modifications  as  to  have  these  modifications  combine  in 
producing  a  new  object,  which,  in  the  measure  it  is  produced, 
takes  its  place  in  the  set  of  the  selected  objects  as  part  of  the 
same  sphere  of  reality.  But  this  does  not  imply  yet  the 
existence  of  a  conscious  aim;  that  is,  the  determination  in 
advance  of  the  object  which  is  going  to  be  produced.  The 
conception  of  the  aim  has  arisen  on  the  ground  of  the  dualism 
of  object  and  subject,  of  real  things  and  subjective  unreal 
representations.  The  aim  is  taken  as  the  future  real  thing 
represented  before  being  realized,  and  activity  is  conceived  as 
the  reaHzation  of  this  unreal  representation,  so  that  the  aim 
is  supposed  to  be  ready  before  activity  begins  and  to  determine 
the  latter.  In  fact,  however,  at  the  moment  when  the  aim  is 
''represented,"  activity  has  been  already  going  on  for  some 
time  and  this  "representation"  is  its  result  in  so  far  as  achieved 
at  that  moment;  the  further  realization  of  this  representation 


PRACTICAL  ORGANIZATION  OF  REALITY  i6l 

is  the  continuation  of  the  same  activity,  its  second  part  which 
would  be  impossible  if  it  had  not  been  preceded  by  the  first 
part. 

We  shall  see  later  in  detail  why  and  how  does  the 
continuous  empirical  activity  become  thus  divided  into  two 
parts,  and  how  the  first  part,  the  creation  of  the  "repre- 
sentation," becomes  qualified  as  "subjective,"  "unreal,"  and 
not  belonging  to  the  activity  proper.  The  general  reason  for 
this  division  lies  in  the  very  progress  of  practical  organization 
of  concrete  reality,  and  the  division  is  justified  from  the 
standpoint  of  practice  and  of  science  in  so  far  as  subservient 
to  practice;  but  this  division  can  be  understood  only  if  taken 
on  the  more  primary  ground  of  concrete  empirical  reaUty  and 
thought.  From  this  more  fundamental  standpoint,  it  is  clear 
that  although  the  "represented"  aim  has  less  realness  than 
the  "  reaHzed  "  aim,  the  difference  is  only  one  of  degree.  Only 
nothingness  is  unreal.  The  active  development  by  which  the 
aim  becomes  defined  and  its  content  and  meaning  partly 
determined,  is  in  its  nature,  even  if  not  always  to  the  same 
degree,  a  development  as  creative  as  the  further  reahzation 
of  this  aim  by  which  it  will  become  a  material  or  social  object. 
Some  reality  is  produced  which  was  not  there  before;  but  it  is 
produced  step  by  step,  from  non-existence  to  the  less  real 
existence  of  the  "representation,"  from  that  to  the  more  real 
existence  of  a  materialized  technical  product,  of  an  accom- 
plished work  of  art,  of  an  estabhshed  social  institution,  etc. 
We  may  divide,  practically  or  theoretically,  this  production 
into  sections  and  the  division  may  be  very  real,  but  there 
always  remains  a  continuous  undercurrent  uniting  the 
separated  sections.  Fundamentally,  in  view  of  this  essential 
continuity  of  the  action,  the  "  represented  "  product  is  the  same 
concrete  object  as  the  fully  reahzed  product,  only  taken  at  a 
lower  stage  of  its  reahzation.  The  picture  which  the  artist 
has  drawn  in  his  imagination  and  the  picture  which  afterward 
appears  upon  the  canvas  are  one  and  the  same  picture;   the 


l62  CULTURAL  REALITY 

conception  of  a  political  institution  germinating  in  the  con- 
sciousness of  a  statesman  and  the  ready  pohtical  institution 
realized  in  the  state  are  objectively  one  and  the  same  histori- 
cal object,  the  political  institution  at  different  stages  of  its 
becoming. 

Thus,  to  say  that  the  future  result  can  be  in  some  way 
given  before  being  realized  is  from  the  standpoint  of  concrete 
reality  equivalent  to  the  proposition  that  something  can  exist 
before  existing.  The  future  result  is  given  only  in  the  very 
measure  in  which  it  is  realized.  The  aim  cannot  pre-exist 
in  consciousness  at  a  moment  when  it  has  not  yet  begun  to 
be  realized,  for  its  appearance  in  consciousness  is  precisely  a 
part  of  its  realization.  The  provisional  determination  of  the 
content  and  meaning  of  the  aim  to  be  attained  is  already  a 
partial  attainment  of  this  aim,  for  this  attainment  from  the 
beginning  to  the  end  is  precisely  nothing  else  but  a  progressive 
determination  of  the  content  and  meaning  of  the  new  object. 
If  the  future  object  is  at  a  certain  moment  represented  by 
analogy  with  some  pre-existing,  formerly  experienced  object, 
this  means  that  this  pre-existing  object  with  some  of  its  content 
and  meaning  is  introduced  into  the  actually  constructed 
organization  as  a  material  for  the  creation  of  the  new  object; 
that  the  content  and  meaning  of  the  latter  are  by  this  very 
introduction  determined  in  certain  respects  on  the  ground  of 
pre-existing  reality  and  are  already  in  some  measure  reahzed. 
The  determination  is  not  definitive ;  we  do  not  know  yet  what 
use  subsequent  acts  will  make  of  this  material,  precisely 
because  the  mere  introduction  of  some  pre-existing  object  as 
a  model  for  the  new  object  is  not  enough  to  determine  the 
whole  content  and  meaning  of  the  latter ;  it  gives  only  a  pro- 
visional and  partial  determination,  which  will  become  defini- 
tive and  complete  only  after  a  more  or  less  long  series  of 
creative  acts,  and  only  the  totality  of  these  acts  will  determine 
the  new  object  as  more  or  less  similar  or  dissimilar  to  the  pre- 
existing object  taken  as  a  model;   that  is,  as  material  which, 


PRACTICAL  ORGANIZATION  OF  REALITY  163 

together  with  many  other  materials,  will  contribute  to  make 
the  new  object. 

Another  serious  mistake  which  must  be  avoided  in  char- 
acterizing the  practical  organization  of  objects  in  actuality  is 
stating  the  problem  in  terms  of  an  ideal  or  real  adapta- 
tion between  the  active  being  and  the  pre-existing  reality. 
The  conception  of  ideal  adaptation  is  inherent  in  the  current 
belief  that  the  active  subject  consciously  selects  in  advance, 
from  among  pre-existing  objects,  those  which,  by  their  nature 
as  determined  independently  of  the  present  activity,  are  apt 
in  themselves  to  be  the  means  for  the  realization  of  the  end 
which,  though  set  freely,  must  be  set  so  as  to  be  attainable 
with  such  means  as  reahty  puts  at  the  subject's  disposal.  The 
theory  of  real  adaptation  treats  activity  as  causally  determined 
by  the  given  conditions,  objective  and  subjective;  the  or- 
ganization of  objects  in  activity  is  a  product  of  the  reciprocal 
adaptation  between  the  subjective  and  objective  conditions, 
the  individual  and  his  environment. 

Each  of  these  conceptions  is  based  on  a  misunderstanding. 
If  we  take  the  active  being  in  the  idealistic  sense  as  the  con- 
scious subject,  the  source  or  the  synthetic  unity  of  actions,  then 
it  does  not  adapt  itself  to  any  reality;  nor  does  it  adapt  any 
reality  to  itself,  because  it  is  the  very  activity  which  takes  the 
existing  reality  for  its  object-matter,  and  the  concept  of  adap- 
tation cannot  be  applied  at  all  to  the  relation  between  activity 
and  its  object-matter.  By  taking  reality  as  its  object-matter, 
the  active  subject  modifies  it,  and  if  in  a  certain  case  a  certain 
object  appears  in  his  present  activity  with  the  character  of  an 
end  and  other  objects  with  the  characters  of  means,  it  is 
because  by  modifying  them  he  has  actively  given  both  these 
characters  to  the  respective  objects  simultaneously  and  with 
reference  to  each  other,  because  by  determining  an  object  as 
something  which  actually  is  being  reached  by  him  with 
certain  means  he  has  made  it  an  end,  and  by  determining, 
vice  versa,  some  objects  as  something  with  the  help  of  which 


l64  CULTURAL  REALITY 

a  certain  end  is  being  actually  reached  by  him,  he  has  made 
them  means.  We  cannot  speak  even  of  an  adaptation  of 
both  the  end  and  means  to  the  pre-existing  rational  organiza- 
tion of  reality.  For,  if  we  take  the  standpoint  of  the  total 
empirical  reaUty,  the  determination  of  an  end  and  of  the 
means  for  its  attainment  is  simply  an  addition  made  to  this 
reality,  a  creation  of  some  new  contents  and  meanings,  not 
an  adaptation  to  anything.  If,  on  the  other  hand,  we  take 
into  consideration  the  specific  organization  which  is  expressed 
in  the  subordination  of  means  to  the  end  and  the  combination 
of  the  means,  this  order  is  not  a  result  of  any  adaptation  to  the 
pre-existing  organization  of  reality,  for  it  is,  on  the  contrary,  a 
creation  of  a  new  organization  outside  and  in  some  measure 
in  spite  of  the  pre-existing  one.  Objects  are  not  ends  or 
means  before  being  used  as  such  actually.  We  shall  see  later 
under  what  special  circumstances  activity  does  create  an 
approximately  teleological  systematic  organization,  an  ideal 
combination  of  definite  means  for  the  attainment  of  a  definite 
end;  but  whenever  it  does  this,  it  must  first  of  all  isolate 
objects  from  the  rest  of  reaUty;  it  must  ignore  the  systems 
in  which  they  participate  so  as  to  incorporate  them  into  the 
new  actual  system. 

If  we  pass  now  to  the  modern  reaHstic  concept  of  adapta- 
tion, it  is  clear  that  the  active  individual  as  biological  or 
psychological  being  may  be  distinguished  by  the  observer 
from  his  material  or  social  environment  when  we  take  him 
merely  as  element  of  a  reaHty  given  to  our  scientific  reflection. 
But  for  "his  own"  activity,  that  is,  for  the  activity  which  has 
its  source  in  his  actuality,  "he, "  his  body  or  his  social  person- 
ality, is  a  part  of  the  reality  given  to  his  active  thought  as  an 
object-matter.  He  does  not  adapt  his  body  or  his  social 
personahty  to  his  environment  or  his  environment  to  them, 
because  his  body  or  his  social  personality — or,  more  exactly, 
certain  parts  of  his  body  or  of  his  social  personahty — are  for 
the  present  activity  elements  of  the  system  which  this  activity 


PRACTICAL  ORGANIZATION  OF  REALITY  165 

organizes,  and  of  which  other  elements  are  drawn  from  among 
the  material  objects  surrounding  his  body  or  the  social  values 
constituting  the  cultural  reaUty  of  his  group.  The  practical 
significance  which  all  these  objects,  the  individual's  own  person 
included,  have  for  his  activity  as  pre-existing  conditions,  as 
possible  object-matter  of  his  active  thought,  does  not  depend 
on  what  they  are  assumed  to  be  by  the  scientific  observer  who 
takes  them  as  elements  of  an  absolute,  objective,  rational 
reahty,  but  on  what  they  empirically  are  for  the  acting 
individual  himself  to  whom  they  are  given  as  components  of 
that  section  of  the  concrete  historical  world  which  constitutes 
this  individual's  particular  sphere  of  reahty.  The  practical 
significance  which  these  objects  assume  when  already  used  by 
present  activity  depends  on  the  latter,  which  thus,  far  from 
being  determined  by  the  pre-existing  conditions,  either  as 
reconstructed  by  the  observing  scientist  or  as  given  to  the 
individual  himself,  determines  itself  these  conditions  in  its 
own  particular  way,  ignores  most  of  them,  and  shapes  those 
which  it  has  selected  as  its  object-matter  into  a  new  systematic 
organization. 

There  is  indeed  adaptation  in  intentional  activity,  but  it 
is  not  adaptation  between  the  active  being  and  reahty,  only 
between  pre-existing  reality  and  the  new  object  which  is  being 
created.  On  the  one  hand,  the  new  object  must  be  adapted  to 
the  pre-existing  reaUty  in  order  to  become  real  itself;  since 
there  is  no  absolute  creation  possible,  since  every  creation 
needs  some  material,  the  new  must  adapt  itself  to  the  con- 
ditions imposed  by  the  old  in  the  measure  inversely  pro- 
portionate to  the  creative  power  and  originaHty  of  the  activity 
which  produces  it.  On  the  other  hand,  the  pre-existing 
reality  must  be  adapted  to  the  new  object  in  order  to  be  able 
to  include  the  latter;  since  every  activity  is  relatively  creative, 
brings  something  new,  the  old  must  adapt  itself  to  the  new 
in  a  measure  directly  proportionate  to  the  creative  power  and 
originahty  of  the  activity  which  modifies  it.     In  unorganized 


1 66  CULTURAL  REALITY 

creation  this  reciprocal  adaptation  becomes  immediately 
realized  by  each  act,  since  each  act  is  independent  and  does 
not  have  to  combine  with  others;  in  organized  activity, 
reciprocal  adaptation  between  the  old  and  the  new  becomes 
a  compUcated  task  whose  importance  grows  with  the  impor- 
tance of  the  total  modification  of  empirical  reality  which  has 
to  be  reahzed  by  one  organization  of  co-operating  acts. 

But  the  task  is  not  imposed  upon  activity  from  the  outside 
and  in  advance;  it  is  undertaken  and  fulfilled  by  activity 
itself  and  within  its  own  limits.  The  measure  and  the  manner 
in  which  the  new  object  has  to  be  adapted  to  pre-existing 
reality  depends  on  the  choice  which  we  have  already  made 
among  pre-existing  objects  in  order  to  determine  the  con- 
tent and  meaning  of  the  new  object  from  the  standpoint 
of  past  experience;  the  measure  and  the  manner  in  which 
pre-existing  reality  has  to  be  adapted  to  the  new  object 
depends  on  the  content  and  meaning  which  we  have 
already  given  to  the  latter.  The  task  is  undertaken  and 
fulfilled  gradually  and  continuously  in  the  very  course  of 
activity. 

Every  new  determination  of  the  new  object  with  the  help 
of  that  set  of  pre-existing  objects  which  we  have  already 
selected  from  the  concrete  empirical  reality  as  the  particular 
field  of  our  action  forces  us  to  modify  this  field,  to  introduce 
some  more  objects  into  it  and  to  establish  some  new  con- 
nections; and  this  modification  of  the  already  given  field  of 
action  forces  us  to  determine  in  some  new  way  our  new  object. 
The  latter  is  a  dynamic,  gradually  constructed  center  of  a 
dynamic,  gradually  effected,  partial  systematization  of  pre- 
existing reality,  a  center  whose  own  determination  in  content 
and  meaning  continually  increases  with  the  growth  of  the 
sphere  organized  around  it  and  which  reciprocally,  with  the 
growth  of  its  own  determination,  becomes  more  and  more 
important  as  a  basis  for  the  selection  and  determination  of  the 
objects  constituting  this  sphere.     Whether  this  systematiza- 


PRACTICAL  ORGANIZATION  OF  REALITY  167 

tion  of  pre-existing  reality  constitutes  an  important  new 
addition  to  the  rational  organization  which  already  existed 
within  the  historical  world  before  the  action  started,  or 
whether  it  only  reproduces  with  slight  variations  a  fragment 
of  this  organization,  depends  on  the  relative  concrete  novelty 
of  the  object  which  is  being  created;  and  vice  versa,  the 
degree  of  novelty  of  the  new  object  when  viewed  from  the 
standpoint  of  the  total  historical  reality  depends  on  the  degree 
of  novelty  of  the  organization  of  old  objects  developed  during 
its  creation.  The  ultimate  reason  of  the  relative  novelty  of 
both  is  the  relative  originality  of  the  action. 

Examples  of  such  a  gradual  reciprocal  adaptation  between 
the  old  and  the  new  are  particularly  clear  in  all  those  activities 
in  which  the  creative  effort  is  not  chiefly  concentrated  in  the 
first,  inventive  and  organizing,  part  of  the  action,  as  it  is  in 
certain  industrial  activities,  but  has  to  be  continued  up  to  the 
end.  Thus,  a  social  reformer  who  wants  to  create  a  new 
institution  must  continually  adapt  the  content  and  meaning 
of  this  institution  to  the  existing  social  reahty,  and  continually 
modify  social  reality  in  adaptation  to  the  institution  as  already 
formed.  The  institution  becomes  the  center  around  which 
and  with  regard  to  which  he  organizes  social  objects  as  they 
gradually  become  utilized  for  the  realization  of  his  intention. 
In  the  beginning  the  new  social  value  is  mostly  determined  in 
its  content  from  the  standpoint  of  the  meaning  given  in  the 
course  of  this  activity  to  certain  pre-existing  social  values:  it 
has  to  satisfy  certain  needs  which  the  social  reformer  has 
observed  in  society;  it  has  to  be  similar  to  or  different  from 
certain  other  institutions  which  he  knows;  it  has  to  possess 
certain  characters  which  make  it  realizable  with  the  help 
or  in  spite  of  the  hindrance  of  some  existing  beliefs,  laws, 
customs,  traditions,  economic  values,  social  personalities,  etc. 
Gradually,  as  the  content  of  the  new  institution  becomes 
realized,  it  imposes  more  and  more  definite  demands  on  the 
pre-existing  reality;   the  social  reformer,  in  order  to  give  the 


l68  CULTURAL  REALITY 

new  value  its  full  social  meaning,  has  to  modify  the  content 
of  other  social  values,  arouse  new  needs  in  society,  supple- 
menting those  which  the  institution  was  at  first  meant  to 
satisfy,  modify  in  some  measure  old  beliefs,  customs,  tradi- 
tions, and  laws,  raise  funds,  publish  articles,  obtain  the  co- 
operation of  influential  personalities,  train  social  workers,  etc. 
Similarly,  for  a  Hterary  man  who  writes  a  novel,  the  novel 
becomes  both  an  expression  of  reality  and  a  basis  of  reinter- 
pretation  of  reality.  In  the  beginning  it  is  mostly  the  content 
of  the  novel  which  is  determined  on  the  ground  of  the  observa- 
tions which  the  writer  selects  and  to  which  he  gives  an  aesthetic 
meaning  as  material  for  his  work;  in  the  measure  that  the  new 
content  grows  in  concreteness,  it  acquires  in  turn  an  aesthetic 
meaning  by  forcing  the  writer  and  later  his  readers  to  look 
upon  reality  in  a  new  way,  to  see  in  it  such  contents  as  nobody 
saw  before. 

The  difference  which  we  find  in  the  foregoing  examples 
between  a  first  period  of  activity  during  which  the  content  of 
the  new  object  is  determined  to  fit  pre-existing  objects  and  a 
second  period  in  which  the  content  of  pre-existing  objects  is 
modified  to  fit  the  new  object,  evidently  does  not  mean  that 
the  new  is  at  first  exclusively  adapted  to  the  old,  and  after- 
ward the  old  exclusively  adapted  to  the  new.  For  when,  in 
the  first  period,  old  objects  are  given  new  meanings  by  being 
used  to  create  the  content  of  the  new  object,  this  is  already  a 
modification  of  pre-existing  reality  just  as  much  as  if  these 
old  objects  were  given  new  contents;  and  when,  in  the  second 
period,  the  new  object  is  given  a  new  meaning  by  having  the 
content  of  old  objects  modified  for  its  sake,  this  is  still  a 
continuation  of  the  creative  activity  as  important  for  the  new 
object  as  a  determination  of  its  content.  The  fact  is  that  in 
every  creation  of  a  new  object  a  determination  of  content  must 
always  precede  a  corresponding  determination  of  meaning, 
since  meaning  cannot  exist  without  content;  and  the  more 
complex  and  rationally  organized  empirical  activity  becomes, 


PRACTICAL  ORGANIZATION  OF  REALITY  169 

the  more  it  tends  to  separate  these  two  tasks,  to  create  first  the 
whole  content  of  the  new  object  and  afterward  only  to  realize 
it  as  an  object  in  giving  it  a  meaning  with  reference  to  other 
pre-existing  objects.  The  separation  is  never  complete; 
from  the  very  beginning  the  new  object  acquires  some  meaning 
and  up  to  the  end  its  content  continues  to  grow.  And  yet, 
though  the  difference  between  the  first  period  and  the  second 
is  only  a  matter  of  degree,  there  is  a  relative  prevalence  of 
the  creation  of  content  in  the  first  and  of  the  creation  of  mean- 
ing in  the  second  period ;  and,  although  the  gradation  between 
these  periods  is  continuous,  this  difference  may  lead  to  a 
partial  but  distinct  division  under  the  influence  of  a  factor 
which  we  shall  investigate  at  once.  In  so  far  as  the  division 
is  performed,  activity  assumes  the  subjectively  finalistic 
character  which  originally  it  did  not  possess.  The  first  period, 
that  during  which  the  content  of  the  new  historical  object  is 
created,  is  then  characterized  as  the  determination  of  an  aim; 
the  second  period,  when  this  content  acquires  reality  with 
reference  to  pre-existing  objects,  is  the  realization  of  this  aim. 

THE   SITUATION 

The  factor  which  leads  to  this  distinction  between  the 
determination  of  an  aim  and  the  realization  of  this  aim  is  the 
use  of  instruments. 

We  remember  that  the  power  of  direct  creation  which  an 
individual  act  of  thought  possesses  by  itself  with  regard  to 
those  historical  objects  whose  content  and  meaning  have  been 
developed  and  fixed  by  innumerable  past  activities,  is  very 
limited.  The  modification  which  an  act  by  its  own  creative 
influence  alone  can  introduce  into  an  old  and  rich  reality  is 
relatively  small;  it  may  indeed  modify  in  a  marked  way  that 
particular  variation  of  a  historical  object  which  is  given  to  the 
individual  in  his  actual  sphere  of  reahty,  but  since  this  vari- 
ation itself  is  only  an  insignificant  part  of  the  total  content  and 
meaning  of  this  object,  which  extends  over  many  individual 


lyo  CULTURAL  REALITY 

here^s  and  lasts  through  many  individual  now's,  the  modifi- 
cation will  be  almost  lost  in  the  total  evolution  of  the  concrete 
historical  object.  There  are  indeed  objects  which  are  less 
real  and  with  regard  to  which  the  direct  creative  power  of  the 
act  manifests  itself  more  clearly.  Such  are,  for  instance,  new 
intellectual  and  aesthetic  objects.  But  even  there  the  indi- 
vidual cannot  give  to  the  product  of  his  act  the  full  degree 
of  realness  which  other,  already  existing  objects  of  this  kind 
possess  without  at  least  the  help  of  words,  spoken  or  written, 
or  some  other  sensual  symbols. 

The  instrument  is  an  object  which  permits  us  to  overcome 
this  Hmitation.  Its  essential  role  is  to  intensify  the  degree  of 
realness  of  the  modification  which  active  thought  produces  by 
putting  at  the  disposal  of  the  latter  the  accumulated  results 
of  innumerable  past  activities;  it  is  an  object  intermediary 
between  thought  and  other  objects.  This  role  would  be 
impossible  if  it  were  not  for  two  characters  of  the  empirical 
world:  first,  that  the  concrete  object  has  both  content  and 
meaning  and  its  content  is  the  product  of  activities  different 
from  those  which  produce  its  meaning,  it  is  the  expression  of 
different  connections;  secondly,  that  the  world  of  objects  is 
not  an  absolute  reality,  that  objects  and  connections  are  not 
all  on  the  same  level,  but  present  innumerable  gradations  as 
to  their  realness,  all  the  way  from  a  momentary  personal 
"illusion"  to  the  oldest  and  most  fixed  "material  thing." 
Thanks  to  the  first  character  of  the  object,  a  modification  of 
the  content  of  an  object  may  prepare  the  ground  for  a  com- 
pletely different  modification  of  its  meaning  by  which  the 
content  of  another  object  will  be  affected,  and  thus  the  first 
object  may  become  the  medium  of  an  indirect  influence  upon 
other  objects.  As  a  result  of  the  second  character  of  the 
empirical  world  of  historical  objects,  the  content  of  an  object 
may  be  not  only  the  expression  of  different  connections,  but 
of  connections  less  real  than  its  meaning;  it  may  possess  a 
smaller  degree  of  realness,  so  that  a  relatively  small  and  there- 


PRACTICAL  ORGANIZATION  OF  REALITY  171 

fore  easy  modification  of  the  former  may  open  the  way  for  a 
modification  of  the  latter,  which  is  much  more  important  from 
the  standpoint  of  the  historical  reality  in  general,  has  a  wide 
influence  upon  other  objects,  and  thus  helps  produce  at  once 
some  deep  and  very  real  modification  in  the  content  of  these 
other  objects.  An  activity  which  uses  instruments  can  reach 
a  more  real  effect  with  less  creative  power  than  if  it  had  no 
instrument  at  its  disposal,  for  it  profits  by  the  fact  of  the 
coexistence  in  the  instrument  of  a  relatively  easily  modifiable 
content  with  a  highly  extensive  and  fixed  meaning,  and  it 
thus  obtains,  by  using  the  modification  of  the  former  as  a 
basis  for  the  modification  of  the  latter,  an  increase  of  the 
realness  of  its  results.  Moreover,  it  can  use  a  whole  series 
of  instruments  so  arranged  that  a  relatively  smaller  modi- 
fication of  each  preceding  instrument  leads  to  a  more  impor- 
tant modification  of  each  succeeding  instrument,  and  the 
degree  of  realness  of  the  modifications  thus  produced  may  grow 
indefinitely  from  the  minimum  found  in  a  modification  of  the 
present  personal  "image  of  an  object"  up  to  the  widest  and 
most  important  material  or  social  changes. 

Examples  illustrating  this  effect  of  instruments  of  various 
degrees  of  complexity  are  easily  found  in  all  spheres  of  activity. 
Take,  for  instance,  a  political  institution.  Its  content  is 
constituted  by  a  small  number  of  social  personaHties  whose 
political  character  is  defined  by  the  constitution ;  its  meaning 
consists  in  all  its  national  prestige  and  legal  influence,  in  the 
suggestion  of  all  the  acts  performed  by  all  the  members  of  the 
nation  in  accordance  with  the  demands  which  the  institution 
puts  upon  them.  By  influencing  this  small  group  of  pohtical 
personalities,  we  can  give  to  a  social  act  which  we  want  to 
perform  the  whole  social  realness  of  the  institution  as  real 
background  and  produce  through  its  intermediary  an  effect 
upon  the  social  and  political  life  of  the  country  greater  than 
the  effect  which  we  could  produce  by  acting  on  the  social 
group  directly,  in  the  very  proportion  in  which  it  is  easier  to 


172  CULTURAL  REALITY 

influence  a  few  political  leaders  than  to  change  the  mean- 
ing which  the  political  institution  has  in  the  eyes  of  the 
nation. 

The  human  body  is  a  system  of  instruments — central  and 
peripheral  nervous  systems,  muscles,  bones,  etc. — which  by  a 
series  of  gradations  increase  the  real  efl&ciency  of  active 
thought  from  the  minimum  of  an  actual  connection  of  personal 
data  to  the  high  degree  of  a  material  movement.  Systems, 
somewhat  different  in  their  construction  and  starting  at  the 
point  where  the  organic  system  ends,  that  is,  with  an  act 
manifested  by  a  movement  of  the  body,  are  found  in  technique 
where  a  proper  synthesis  of  a  series  of  instruments  permits  us 
to  put  a  train  into  motion  or  to  light  thousands  of  street 
lamps  by  merely  pressing  an  electric  button  with  a  finger. 
Here  we  see  with  particular  clearness  how  an  insignificant  and 
therefore  not  very  real  modification  of  an  instrument,  because 
of  an  agglomeration  of  results,  leads  to  a  modification  possess- 
ing an  incomparably  higher  degree  of  realness.  Different 
again  in  its  secondary  characters  but  similar  in  its  essential 
significance  is  the  part  played  by  the  mathematical  symbol  in 
which  the  idea  of  some  physical  law  is  formulated;  the  concept 
of  the  law,  by  being  symbolically  expressed,  exercises  through 
the  intermediacy  of  its  formula  an  influence  upon  the  entire 
system  of  physics  which  its  creator  could  never  give  it  directly 
by  acts  of  theoretic  thought  alone. 

In  interpreting  these  examples  on  the  ground  of  concrete 
experience,  we  must,  of  course,  put  provisionally  aside  all  the 
explanations  which  the  sociologist,  the  biologist,  the  physicist, 
the  logician,  may  give  from  the  standpoint  of  his  conception 
of  reality  about  the  way  in  which  the  instrument  acts.  Thus, 
from  the  physical  standpoint  there  is  no  growth  of  reality 
occurring  between  the  pressure  of  a  button  and  the  movement 
of  a  train  or  the  appearance  of  street  lights  in  a  city;  there  is 
only  a  process  of  transformation  of  energy  started  by  the  pres- 
sure, during  which  the  total  quantity  of  energy  in  the  world 


PRACTICAL  ORGANIZATION  OF  REALITY  173 

remains  the  same.  But  this  explanation  is  already  the  prod- 
uct of  a  long  evolution,  first  of  practical  systems,  secondly 
of  systems  of  theoretic  ideas  drawn  from  the  practically 
systematized  reaHty.  The  rejection  of  creation  is  the  essential 
principle  of  physical  explanations,  whereas  creative  growth  is 
the  essential  feature  of  the  empirical  world.  From  the  stand- 
point of  present  empirical  activity,  the  modification  produced 
in  the  instrument  with  the  help  of  a  movement  of  the  human 
body  is  incomparably  less  real  than  the  modification  produced 
in  other  objects  with  the  help  of  this  instrument,  and  a  naive 
observer  who  does  not  yet  know  anything  about  the  principle 
of  conservation  of  energy  and  is  not  accustomed  to  see  such  an 
accumulation  of  results  will  invariably  express  his  astonish- 
ment at  this  accumulation  in  searching  for  more  original 
activity  than  that  actually  performed.  In  fact,  within  the 
limits  of  the  present  action  the  instrument  cannot  possibly  be 
defined  as  a  mere  medium  transferring  modifications ;  it  must 
be  conceived  as  increasing  the  realness  of  the  modification. 

Even  physical  science  cannot  deny  that  it  does  perform 
this  role,  only  it  tries  to  explain  it  away  by  assuming  that  the 
accumulation  of  reality  noticeable  between  the  beginning  and 
the  end  of  the  instrumental  action  is  due  to  the  fact  that  action 
draws  into  the  system  of  objects  which  it  uses  to  attain  its 
result  some  pre-existing  real  power  stored  in  the  outside  world, 
which  is  interpreted  as  utilizing  ready  energy.  But  this 
presupposes  that  activity  finds  its  means  ready  in  pre-existing 
reality  which,  as  we  have  seen  in  the  preceding  section,  is 
false.  "  Utilizing  the  energy  "  of  an  outside  object  is  precisely 
using  this  object  already  as  instrument  within  the  action  to 
obtain  an  increase  of  reality.  The  object  has  acquired  the 
character  of  an  instrument  only  by  being  incorporated  into  a 
dynamic  practical  organization  of  objects;  it  is  not  used  as 
instrument  because  it  possesses  utiHzable  energy  but  is 
characterized  as  possessing  utilizable  energy  because  it  can  be 
used  as  instriunent. 


174  CULTURAL  REALITY 

Another  scientific  assumption  concerning  the  instrument 
must  be  also  excluded  from  the  fundamental  empirical  defini- 
tion of  the  latter:  it  is  the  principle  that  the  modification 
produced  in  the  instrument  must  be  of  the  same  order  as  the 
modification  produced  with  its  help  in  other  objects;  that  to 
produce  physical  change  with  the  instrument  it  is  absolutely 
and  always  necessary  to  act  physically  upon  the  instrument; 
that  a  social  effect  must  have  necessarily  a  social  cause 
(Durkheim);  that  an  influence  which  is  psychological  in  its 
consequences  must  be  psychological  in  its  nature;  that 
scientific  ideas  can  be  affected  only  by  logical  reasoning,  etc. 
As  a  matter  of  fact,  the  modification  produced  with  the  help 
of  the  instrument  is  always  different  from  that  produced  in  the 
instrument,  since  it  is  based  on  different  connections.  The 
range  of  the  differences  is  quite  indefinitely  wide.  Empiri- 
cally, the  pressure  of  a  button  is  probably  as  much  different 
from  the  appearance  of  electric  light  as  is  the  "desire  to  walk" 
from  walking,  or  the  plan  of  battle  constructed  by  a  general 
from  the  attack  performed  by  his  soldiers,  or  the  modification 
of  symbols  in  a  mathematical  formula  from  the  modification 
of  scientific  ideas  to  which  it  indirectly  leads. 

In  concrete  experience  objects  are  not  absolutely  divided 
into  physical  and  psychical,  social  and  ideal.  This  division  of 
reaUty  into  different  orders  is  a  product  of  rational  systemati- 
zation,  and  we  shall  study  it  presently.  But  it  is  only  super- 
imposed upon  concrete  reaHty;  it  only  partially  determines 
concrete  objects;  any  concrete  object  can  belong  to  all  these 
orders.  Since  from  the  standpoint  of  concrete  experience  the 
modification  of  an  instrument  may  be  indefinitely  different 
from  the  modification  of  another  object  which  is  produced  with 
the  help  of  this  instrument,  it  is  contrary  to  all  fundamental 
characters  of  empirical  reality  to  assume  that  an  action  may 
not,  by  using  instruments,  pass  from  one  order  of  reality  to 
another.  The  consequence  of  this  assumption  is  well  known: 
it  is  the  introduction  of  impassable  gulfs  between  the  "physi- 


PRACTICAL  ORGANIZATION  OF  REALITY  175 

cal"  and  the  "psychical,"  between  either  the  physical  or  the 
psychical  and  the  ''social,"  between  the  physical,  the  psychical 
or  the  social,  and  the  "ideal"  domain.  But  activity  crosses 
these  gulfs  all  the  time  and  this  fact  can  be  understood  only 
if  we  reaUze  that  it  is  precisely  the  instrument  which  permits 
it  to  do  so,  because  every  instrument  as  real  object  is  real  in 
several  domains  at  once.  Thus,  the  influence  exercised  by  the 
psychical  upon  the  physical  and  vice  versa  is  possible  only 
because  our  oldest  and  primary  instrument,  our  body,  is 
originally,  as  a  part  of  concrete  reality,  neither  psychical  nor 
physical,  and  thus  can  become  in  a  rationalized  reahty  a  part 
of  both  the  psychical  and  the  physical  orders  and  serve  as 
intermediary  to  any  activity  which  passes  from  one  of  these 
orders  to  the  other.  The  influence  of  the  physical  or  psychical 
upon  the  social,  and  reciprocally  also,  presupposes  that  the 
chief  instruments  of  all  social  activities — other  human  person- 
ahties — are  originally  neither  physical  nor  psychical  nor  social, 
but  can  belong  to  all  three  orders  by  various  connections  and 
thus  an  activity  which  uses  them  can  pass  freely  from  the 
social  order  into  the  physical  or  psychical  order  or  vice  versa. 
Finally,  the  influence  which  physical,  psychical,  social  activi- 
ties have  upon  the  order  of  theoretic  ideas  and  vice  versa  is 
possible  only  because  the  primary  instrument  of  theoretic 
activities — the  symbol — is  neither  physical  nor  psychical  nor 
social  nor  ideal  originally,  but  can  by  its  various  sides  belong 
to  any  one  of  these  orders  and  thus  serves  as  intermediary 
between  the  ideal  and  the  social,  the  psychical,  or  the  physical 
creation. 

Before  we  pass  to  the  investigation  of  the  part  played  by 
the  instrument  in  the  practical  rationalization  of  reahty,  we 
must  take  into  consideration  the  point  that  the  use  of  an 
instrument  is  not  determined  in  advance  by  its  concrete 
nature  alone.  There  is,  as  we  know,  no  rational  connection 
whatever  between  the  content  of  an  object  and  its  mean- 
ing, and  no  way  of  telhng  in  advance  how  its  meaning  will 


176  CULTURAL  REALITY 

be  affected  by  a  certain  modification  of  its  content.  Two 
instruments,  or  the  same  instrument  at  different  moments, 
may  lead  to  completely  different  results  when  directly  modi- 
fied in  a  similar  way,  and,  on  the  contrary,  may  lead  to  similar 
results  while  being  modified  each  in  a  different  way.  It  must 
be  realized  also  that  a  modification  of  the  content  of  an 
instrument  does  not  bring  automatically  any  modification  in 
those  objects  upon  which  we  want  to  act  through  this  instru- 
ment; it  only  creates  in  the  instrument  a  basis  for  a  new  act 
which  on  account  of  this  basis  will  be  able  to  produce  a  more 
important  modification  in  some  other  object  than  it  could  do 
without  it.  We  shall  see  later  under  what  special  circum- 
stances a  causal  sequence  of  changes  develops,  so  that  a  change 
of  one  object  leads  to  a  change  in  another  object  without — 
or,  more  exactly,  almost  without — the  help  of  a  new  act.  But 
this  is  not  the  original  condition.  The  introduction  of  an 
instrument  does  not  diminish  the  amount  of  activity;  on 
the  contrary,  where  only  one  act  was  necessary,  the  instru- 
ment requires  two  at  least;  only  it  increases  the  importance 
of  the  results  in  a  much  higher  proportion.  Once  intro- 
duced the  instrument  may  be  perfected,  and  it  is  this  per- 
fecting which  has  the  effect  of  diminishing  the  amount  of 
activity  necessary  to  have  the  instrument  work.  Originally 
activity  must  rationalize  the  instrument  along  with  the 
rationahzation  of  the  reality  for  which  the  instrument  has 
to  serve.  It  must  establish  a  fixed  correspondence  between 
a  certain  change  of  the  content  and  a  certain  change  of  the 
meaning  of  the  instrument  by  determining  both  of  them  with 
reference  to  each  other;  it  must  direct  the  change  of  the 
meaning  by  turning  the  instrument  to  a  specific  use,  by 
taking  it  as  intermediary  for  the  production  of  specific 
changes  in  specific  objects;  in  a  word,  it  must  make  it  a 
definite  instrument  by  introducing  it,  together  with  other 
objects,  into  the  dynamic  organization  constructed  for  the 
creation  of  a  new  object. 


PRACTICAL  ORGANIZATION  OF  REALITY  177 

There  is  one  fundamental  difference  between  the  instru- 
ment and  all  other  objects  which  activity  uses  in  organized 
creation.  While  active  thought  is  perfectly  free  in  dealing 
with  any  empirical  objects,  can  give  them  any  determination, 
and  connect  them  in  any  way  whatever,  its  possibilities 
become  limited  when  it  begins  to  use  instruments.  It  puts 
upon  the  instrument  a  demand  whose  realization  no  longer 
depends  on  actual  thought  alone,  but  on  the  pre-existing 
real  nature  of  the  instrument,  for  it  is  a  demand  to  have  cer- 
tain specific  characteristics  of  a  real  object,  the  agglomerated 
results  of  past  creation,  help  actual  thought  produce  at  once 
new  results  which  would  require  otherwise  a  series  of  innumer- 
able acts  lasting  for  a  very  long  period  of  time.  It  is  clear  that 
only  a  few  objects  possess  the  required  characteristics;  the 
higher  the  demand  which  thought  here  puts  upon  reahty, 
the  more  difl&cult  its  satisfaction  and  the  more  limited  the 
possibilities  of  the  activity  which  has  made  its  results  depend- 
ent upon  this  satisfaction. 

Thus,  in  the  organized  plurality  of  acts  producing  a  certain 
new  object,  there  is  a  marked  difference  between  acts  which 
use  instruments  and  those  which  do  not.  The  latter,  though 
some  are  more  original  and  others  more  influenced  by  the  past, 
are  nevertheless  entirely  free;  they  may  select  any  objects 
as  ground  for  the  construction  of  the  new  object  and  establish 
between  them  any  connections  whatever;  each  following  act 
is  only  required  to  co-operate  with  the  preceding  acts  so  as  to 
reach  a  common  result ;  but  neither  the  result  nor  the  manner 
of  this  co-operation  is  in  any  way  determined  in  advance  or 
conditioned  by  pre-existing  reaUty,  Whereas  the  acts  which 
use  instruments  to  attain  their  results  become  bound  by  their 
own  claims.  They  are  not  bound  absolutely,  for  the  use  of 
the  instrument  is,  as  we  have  just  seen,  not  absolutely  deter- 
mined in  advance  and  a  certain  range  of  possibihties  left;  but 
this  range  is  no  longer  unlimited.  An  instrumental  act  is 
also  required  only  to  co-operate  with  other  acts  in  producing 


178  CULTURAL  REALITY 

a  common  result ;  but  the  nature  of  this  result  and  the  way  in 
which  it  shall  be  reached  are  in  some  measure  at  least  condi- 
tioned by  the  pre-existing  nature  of  the  instrument.  A  given 
instrument  can  reach  a  certain  result  only  with  a  limited 
variety  of  material,  and,  having  at  its  disposal  a  given  kind 
of  material,  it  can  reach  only  a  limited  variety  of  results. 
And  vice  versa,  if  we  want  to  reahze  by  instrumental  activity 
a  certain  result  on  the  ground  of  a  given  material,  we  must  use 
a  certain  specific  variety  of  instruments.  The  partial  result 
obtained  by  one  act  with  the  help  of  a  certain  instrument  and 
on  the  ground  of  certain  materials  imposes  a  definite  condition 
on  other  acts  which  can  co-operate  with  it  only  if  they  supple- 
ment it  and  do  not  destroy  its  work.  Thus,  with  every  step, 
even  that  range  of  possibilities  which  each  instrumental  act 
originally  possesses  when  performed  independently  of  other 
similar  acts,  becomes  more  and  more  narrowed,  until  finally 
toward  the  end  of  a  complicated  instrumental  action,  every- 
thing, materials,  instruments,  and  results,  is  quite  uncondi- 
tionally determined. 

This  differentiation  between  non-instrumental  and  instru- 
mental acts  largely  coincides  with  that  between  acts  con- 
structing the  content  of  the  new  object  and  those  which  give 
it  a  meaning  with  reference  to  other  objects  by  modifying  the 
content  of  the  latter.  Though  the  content  of  the  new  object 
becomes  in  some  measure  enriched  even  by  acts  whose  chief 
intention  is  merely  to  make  this  object,  with  its  content  once 
given,  fully  real  by  incorporating  it  with  the  help  of  instru- 
ments into  pre-existing  reality,  still  it  is  possible  to  construct 
most  of  this  content  without  the  help  of  instruments.  Thus, 
the  content  of  the  new  piece  of  furniture  which  the  carpenter 
makes  acquires  some  additional  characters  in  the  course  of 
these  acts  which,  without  trying  to  determine  its  shape,  color, 
size,  etc.,  tend  only  to  materialize  physically  the  determination 
reached  before.  We  can  in  a  large  measure  "represent"  what 
a  house  which  we  want  looks  like  before  having  started  to 


PRACTICAL  ORGANIZATION  OF  REALITY  179 

build  it,  we  can  outline  mentally  the  organization  of  an 
institution  and  make  the  choice  of  its  leaders  without  having 
yet  tried  to  realize  it  socially,  we  can  imagine  the  content  of 
an  emotion  before  having  produced  the  conditions  which  will 
make  it  psychologically  real,  etc.  On  the  other  hand,  though 
the  meaning  which  we  give  to  this  content  by  connecting  it 
mentally  with  pre-existing  objects,  by  representing  the  house 
built  in  a  certain  place  with  certain  materials  and  tools  and  by 
certain  workers,  by  reflecting  how  the  institution  can  be 
socially  realized  in  the  existing  social,  political,  economic  con- 
ditions, is  already  a  beginning  of  its  reahzation,  still  this 
realization  can  be  fully  achieved  only  by  producing  such  real 
modifications  in  pre-existing  objects  as  actual  thought  cannot 
create  directly  by  the  mere  power  of  its  acts,  and  therefore 
most  of  the  activities  by  which  the  meaning  of  the  new  object 
is  created  and  this  object  incorporated  into  pre-existing  reaUty 
as  a  part  of  it  are  instrumental  activities.  Thus  a  difference 
of  nature  is  superimposed  upon  the  difference  of  degree  which 
distinguished  the  two  periods  of  organized  activity:  creation 
of  the  new  content  and  its  realization  in  the  objective  world. 
The  separation  of  these  two  periods  becomes  deepened 
with  every  repeated  use  of  the  same  instruments  which  fixes 
the  practical  significance  of  each  of  them  and  determines  more 
and  more  definitely  the  ways  in  which  their  influences  can  be 
combined  so  as  to  reach  a  common  result.  Of  course,  their 
repetition  is  not  absolute.  The  efficiency  of  an  instrument 
depends  on  the  stabihty  of  that  old  •  and  fixed  meaning  on 
which  its  use  is  based,  and  this  meaning  has  to  be  modified  in 
some  measure  every  time  the  instrument  is  actually  utiHzed 
since  this  is  precisely  how  new  results  can  be  produced  with  its 
help.  Every  given  instrument  must  therefore  gradually  lose 
this  original  meaning;  it  becomes  used  up,  destroyed.  But  the 
new  and  specific  meaning  which  it  has  acquired  in  the  course 
of  the  very  activity  which  has  been  using  it  as  an  instru- 
ment, the  meaning  of  being  a  certain  particular  instrument 


l8o  CULTURAL  REALITY 

with  which  definite  results  can  be  obtained,  may  become 
attached  to  other  similar  objects — a  phenomenon  which  is 
particularly  clear  in  the  case  when  many  copies  of  an  artificial 
instrument  are  especially  made  with  the  help  of  other  instru- 
ments, but  which  is  found  also  when  a  certain  class  of  natural 
objects,  such  as  stones  for  example,  on  the  ground  of  their 
similarity  become  permanently  qualified  as  instruments  to  be 
used  for  certain  purposes.  However  fixed  may  become  a 
certain  way  of  using  an  instrument,  other  ways  are  of  course 
always  possible.  A  technical  tool  may  serve  in  emergency  as 
a  weapon;  a  weapon,  as  a  technical  tool.  But  when  a  certain 
kind  of  practical  activity  requires  a  combination  of  several 
instruments,  with  the  growing  fixation  of  the  use  of  each  of 
them,  the  number  of  possible  combinations  may  become  very 
small.  When  thus,  into  a  certain  dynamic  system  several 
definite  instruments  are  introduced,  the  further  development 
of  this  system  becomes  at  once  very  limited;  the  content  of 
the  new  object  which  can  be  reahzed  by  this  combination  of 
instruments,  the  nature  of  the  old  objects  which  will  serve  as 
material  for  this  reahzation,  are  no  longer  left  to  the  free 
determination  of  active  thought  but  are  settled  with  reference 
to  the  possibihties  of  realization  imphed  by  the  choice  of  the 
instruments. 

The  status  of  the  dynamic  practical  organization  of  objects 
at  the  moment  when  instruments  have  been  chosen,  the  real- 
izable content  of  the  new  object  settled,  and  the  ground  upon 
which  its  reahzation  will  go  on  defined  with  reference  to  the 
given  combination  of  instruments  is  what  we  call  the  situation. 
The  situation  separates  the  period  during  which  the  content  of 
the  new  object  is  constructed  from  that  which  is  filled  chiefly 
by  the  realization  of  this  content;  it  corresponds  more  or  less 
exactly  to  that  stage  when  activity  ceases  to  be  limited  to  the 
sphere  of  experience  of  the  agent  and  by  beginning  to  use 
instruments  enters  at  once  into  the  full  objective  reahty.  All 
the  elements  of  the  practical  system  are,  or  are  supposed  to  be, 


PRACTICAL  ORGANIZATION  OF  REALITY  i8l 

already  there  and  interconnected,  but  the  more  difficult  part 
of  activity,  that  in  which  the  latter  makes  itself  dependent  on 
reality,  is  still  to  be  performed.  Only  because  all  the  objects 
necessary  for  this  part  of  activity  are  supposed  to  have 
been  already  selected,  already  incorporated  into  the  practical 
organization,  the  many  partial  practical  problems  concerning 
the  adaptation  of  the  old  to  the  new  which  activity  was  to  put 
and  solve  in  succession  during  its  second  period,  are  now  put 
all  at  once  with  reference  to  one  another  and  constitute  one 
complex  problem:  how  to  realize  this  definite  new  content 
with  these  definite  instruments  and  materials  which  are 
actually  at  our  disposal.  The  whole  subsequent  activity  is 
expected  to  give  the  solution  of  this  problem. 

The  situation  is  thus  both  personal — "mental,"  and 
supra-personal — physical,  social,  objectively  psychological, 
ideal.  It  is  the  product  of  non-instrumental  acts  of  thought 
selecting  and  connecting  pre-existing  objects  and  creating  the 
content  of  the  new  object,  and  at  the  same  time  it  is  the  foun- 
dation of  instrumental  acts  which  will  use  these  selected  and 
connected  pre-existing  objects  and  construct  the  meaning 
of  the  new  object.  Because  the  complex  problem  facing 
activity  in  the  given  situation  appears  essentially  as  a  problem 
of  realization,  from  the  standpoint  of  this  problem  a  natural 
distinction  develops.  All  those  elements  of  the  situation 
which  are  given  as  real  ground  for  the  solution  of  the  problem, 
first  of  all  the  instruments  and  materials  whose  pre-existing 
realness  is  expected  to  serve  as  a  basis  for  the  task  of  realiza- 
tion which  activity  is  going  to  undertake,  appear  as  real  and 
supra-personal  par  excellence;  the  fact  that  they  had  to  be 
selected  out  of  the  whole  concrete  reality  and  especially  deter- 
mined for  the  present  use  by  active  thought  is  ignored  as 
irrelevant  for  the  problem  of  realization  as  already  defined. 
On  the  other  hand,  those  elements  whose  complete  reahzation 
is  expected  to  come  only  as  the  result  of  instrumental  activity, 
first  of  all  the  new  object,  are  treated  as  still  unreal  and  sub- 


l82  CULTURAL  REALITY 

jective ;  the  fact  that  they  have  been  reahzed  in  some  measure 
by  active  thought  while  the  situation  was  constructed  and 
that  there  would  be  no  situation  at  all  without  this  partial 
realization,  does  not  count  from  the  standpoint  of  the  actual 
problem,  since  it  is  precisely  the  insufficiency  of  this  reaKza- 
tion  which  calls  for  instrumental  activity.  We  have  thus  a 
distinction  and  opposition  appearing  on  the  ground  of  the 
situation:  objective  reality,  constituted  fundamentally  by  the 
instruments  and  the  materials  as  determined  with  regard  to 
the  instruments,  is  opposed  to  subjective  representation,  whose 
nucleus  is  the  content  of  the  new  object.  In  so  far,  however,  as 
the  reaHzation  of  this  representation  is  precisely  the  expected 
solution  of  the  actual  problem  from  the  standpoint  of  which 
the  distinction  is  made,  the  representation  appears  as  a  future 
reality  to  be  brought  into  existence  by  action,  as  the  aim 
imposed  upon  instrumental  activity. 

From  this  standpoint  of  the  problem  involved  in  the 
situation,  which  is  the  usual  standpoint  taken  by  common- 
sense  reflection  about  activity,  it  does  not  matter  at  all  how 
the  situation  has  been  reached.  The  whole  first  period  of 
activity,  creation  of  the  aim  and  organization  of  the  situation, 
is  left  outside;  the  situation,  which  is  both  a  result  and  a 
starting-point,  is  taken  only  as  a  starting-point,  is  defined 
exclusively  with  regard  to  the  future,  not  with  regard  to  the 
past.  Its  imperfectly  realized  elements  being  excluded  as 
subjective,  its  fully  real  elements,  those  which  will  con- 
stitute a  basis  for  the  solution  of  the  problem,  acquire  a  type 
of  rational  determination  which  in  its  essential  characters 
becomes  the  most  important  constitutive  part  of  our  common- 
sense  view  of  reality  and  if  not  the  only,  at  least  the  primary, 
real  foundation  of  our  scientific  conceptions. 

It  is  evident  on  the  ground  of  the  preceding  discussion  that 
the  more  definitively  is  the  organization  of  the  situation  con- 
ditioned by  the  nature  of  the  instruments  and  of  the  materials 
upon  which  these  instruments  are  going  to  be  used,  the  less 


PRACTICAL  ORGANIZATION  OF  REALITY  183 

are  these  instruments  and  materials  and  their  connections 
dependent  upon  the  present  course  of  experience  and  reflection. 
The  whole  situation  at  the  moment  when  it  is  ready  and  is 
going  to  be  solved  appears  as  self -existing  and  self-determined, 
with  all  its  objects  objectively  present  at  once  and  all  their 
connections  settled.  Since  for  the  co-operation  of  instru- 
mental activities  which  are  to  realize  the  given  aim  it  is  indis- 
pensable that  the  character  of  every  object,  instrument  or 
material  be  fixed  with  reference  to  all  other  objects,  the 
determination  of  the  objects  in  the  situation  is  completely 
reciprocal  and,  the  situation  being  ready,  simultaneous. 
Under  these  circumstances,  the  way  in  which  objects  and  their 
connections  are  given  is  quite  different  from  what  it  is  in  the 
course  of  the  development  of  activity.  The  object,  when 
introduced  into  the  dynamic  actual  organization  which  activ- 
ity produces  step  by  step,  becomes  indeed  determined  in  its 
content  specifically  with  reference  to  all  other  objects  with 
which  it  serves  to  realize  a  common  result,  but  as  this  deter- 
mination is  gradually  achieved  in  the  course  of  activity,  the 
evolution  which  the  content  undergoes  appears  as  an  actual, 
more  or  less  intentional,  modification  by  which  a  certain  side 
of  the  content  is  pushed  forward,  experienced  more  and  more 
consciously,  whereas  other  sides  are  neglected,  drop  into  the 
background.  For  instance,  when  a  painter  begins  to  paint  a 
landscape,  each  of  the  objects  included  in  this  landscape 
acquires  its  aesthetic  significance  step  by  step  in  the  very 
course  of  the  artist's  activity,  and  it  is  a  special  and  usually 
consciously  fulfilled  task  of  the  artist  to  bring  forward  such 
features  only  as  will  permit  it  to  contribute  in  combination 
with  other,  also  selectively  determined,  objects  to  the  pro- 
duction of  a  harmonious  aesthetic  work  of  a  certain  style. 
This  analysis  of  the  content,  this  distinction  of  those  particu- 
lar characters  which  are  important  from  the  standpoint  of 
the  practical  system,  appears  as  achieved  when  the  situation 
is  settled.     These  particular   characters,  which  in  concrete 


l84  CULTURAL  REALITY 

experience  were  rather  one-sided  determinations  of  the  content 
as  a  whole  than  distinct  components  of  the  content,  which 
were  merely  different,  more  or  less  special  aspects  which  the 
concrete  object  was  given  in  different  connections,  now  in  a 
definitely  fixed  situation  become  separate  constituent  parts 
of  the  content,  properties  of  the  object.  The  more  definite 
the  situation  is,  the  more  the  objects  included  in  it  lose  within 
its  limits  that  indefinite  and  evolving  complexity  of  content 
which  belongs  to  concrete  historical  reality,  and  become,  of 
course,  only  within  the  Kmits  of  the  situation,  stabilized 
things  with  a  Hmited  number  and  variety  of  uniformly  deter- 
mined properties  which  are  objectively  inherent  in  them  and 
exhaust  the  reality  of  the  things  as  elements  of  this  situation. 
A  similar  evolution  is  undergone  by  the  connections 
between  the  objects  included  in  the  situation.  During  the 
actual  dynamic  organization  of  a  practical  system,  of  all  the 
possible  connections  which  the  meaning  of  an  object  suggests, 
a  few  acquire  a  predominant  importance.  They  are  those 
which  have  to  be  modified  for  the  present  purpose.  Certain 
suggestions  become  analyzed  out  of  the  complex  meaning  of 
the  object.  But  this  analysis  is  active  and  conscious;  the 
connections  become  isolated  in  the  course  of  the  very  acts 
which  are  using  them.  Thus,  in  pursuing  the  realization  of 
a  new  social  value,  out  of  the  whole  complexity  of  connections 
existing  between  the  personaHties  and  the  institutions  which 
we  are  using,  we  pay  no  attention  to  most  and  take  only  those 
which  we  need;  we  qualify  the  total  social  meaning  of  these 
personalities  and  institutions  in  a  special  way  for  the  present 
purpose.  This  analysis,  which  is  still  rather  a  qualification  of 
the  total  meaning  of  the  given  object  than  a  clear  separation 
of  isolated  connections  from  others,  appears  as  pushed  to  the 
end  in  a  situation.  Here  the  meaning  of  each  object  is 
reduced  to  a  definite  number  of  specific  suggested  connections 
and  the  rest  is  left  out  of  the  situation;  and  in  the  very 
measure  in  which  the  situation  is  ready  and  objective,  these 


PRACTICAL  ORGANIZATION  OF  REALITY  185 

connections  no  longer  seem  dependent  on  actuality.  Being 
the  only  ones  possible  within  the  limits  of  the  situation  and, 
from  the  standpoint  of  the  practical  problem,  each  of  them 
fully  determined,  they  appear  as  rooted  in  the  reality  itself, 
as  existing  in  fact  between  the  objects,  as  completely  real 
conditions  which  active  thought  has  simply  to  accept.  A 
connection  which  is  supposed  to  exist  fully  between  the 
objects  and  does  not  need  to  be  reproduced  in  actuality  is  a 
relation.  Thus,  in  the  definite  situation  objects  no  longer 
become  interconnected  but  are  interrelated.  The  specifically 
determined  meaning  of  each  object  by  which  it  actually  leads 
us  to  other  objects  has  no  longer  the  character  of  a  suggestion 
for  creative  activity;  it  is  no  longer  a  meaning,  but  appears 
merely  as  the  consciousness  of  the  existing  relation;  it  is  a 
subjective  possibility  of  recognizing  a  relation,  not  an  objective 
possibility  of  reproducing  a  connection.  For  instance,  the 
spatial  arrangement  of  material  objects  which  for  concrete 
activity  is  a  suggestion  and  a  possibility  of  organic  movements, 
of  passing  from  one  object  to  another,  in  a  stabiHzed  situation 
acquires  the  character  of  a  system  of  spatial  relations;  the 
possibihty  of  exchanging  socially  a  value  against  other  values, 
which  is  originally  merely  a  suggestion  of  social  action,  in 
economic  situations  becomes  an  objective  economic  relation 
between  these  values  and  is  symboHcally  expressed  in  their 
relative  price. 

In  the  situation  a  foundation  is  thus  laid  for  this  rational 
determination  of  reahty  which  the  Aristotelian  logic  assumes — 
thing,  property  (quality,  quantity,  or  state),  and  relation 
being  the  three  fundamental  categories  to  which  the  Aris- 
totelian ten  categories  can  be  reduced.  The  particular  form 
which  this  determination  assumes  with  regard  to  various 
objects  depends  on  the  character  of  the  situation,  on  the  nature 
of  the  instruments,  materials,  and  aim.  The  things  may  be 
physical  bodies  with  physical  properties  and  relations,  or 
social  personalities  with  political  properties  and  relations,  or 


l86  CULTURAL  REALITY 

economically  determined  values,  or  psychological  entities 
(emotions,  volitions,  perceptions,  remembrances,  etc.)  quali- 
fied by  specific  properties  which  make  their  various  classifica- 
tions possible  and  interrelated  as  elements  of  a  consciousness; 
or  they  may  be  theoretic  concepts  in  which  the  elementary 
ideas  composing  them  play  a  part  similar  to  that  of  physical 
properties  in  physical  objects,  and  whose  relations  are  those  of 
subordination  and  subsumption,  etc.  We  shall  see  later  how 
various  types  of  this  rational  determination  become  standard- 
ized. But  their  fundamental  character  is  always  the  same, 
because  it  results  from  the  general  practical  origin  of  every 
rational  organization  and  from  the  particular  conditions  which 
organized  creation  imposes  upon  itself  whenever,  in  order  to 
shorten  its  duration  and  to  increase  its  real  efl&ciency,  it  makes 
use  of  instruments. 

Every  situation  is  apt  to  be  approximately  reproduced. 
The  reproduction,  unless  specially  aimed  at  and  regulated,  a 
question  which  we  shall  discuss  presently,  is  dependent  on  the 
reappearance  of  similar  real  conditions  in  concrete  reality,  and 
since  the  latter  is  continually  evolving,  the  similarity  of 
conditions  and  therefore  also  the  reproduction  of  the  situation 
is  always  only  approximate.  The  dynamic  practical  organiza- 
tion in  which  the  situation,  as  a  fixed  and  completely  objec- 
tified status,  has  its  origin  can  never  spontaneously  repeat 
itself,  for  either  some  of  the  objects  which  enter  into  its  com- 
position or  some  of  the  connections  actually  established 
between  these  objects  differ  from  case  to  case;  and  when 
neither  the  aim  nor  the  way  to  realize  it  are  fixed  in  advance, 
any  variation  appearing  in  the  course  of  concrete  activity  leads 
to  new  variations,  which  accumulate  and  grow  with  every 
step.  Therefore  in  the  activity  which  has  perhaps  preserved 
most  of  the  original  concrete  character — in  artistic  creation — 
there  is  the  least  uniformity,  as  long  as  this  activity  is  not 
subjected,  like  other  activities,  to  minute  technical  demands 
connected  with  the  use  of  specific  and  highly  determined 


PRACTICAL  ORGANIZATION  OF  REALITY  187 

instruments.  Indeed,  it  is  the  use  of  instruments  which  not 
only  stabilizes  the  dynamic  system  into  a  situation,  a  static 
problem  to  be  solved,  but  also  increases  the  chances  of 
repetition.  This  is,  of  course,  again  only  a  matter  of  degree. 
Neither  does  each  instrument  in  particular  remain  exactly  the 
same,  nor  is  a  given  combination  of  instruments  which  neces- 
sitates a  stabilized  situation  ever  reproduced  in  experience 
without  special  regulative  measures.  It  is  easier  to  have  a 
certain  combination — one  of  the  few  possible  combinations — 
of  a  limited  number  of  instruments  reappear  approximately 
similar  in  concrete  activity,  than  one  of  the  unlimited  possible 
combinations  of  an  indefinite  number  of  concrete  objects 
which  are  not  instruments.  When  once  a  combination  of 
instruments  is  approximately  reproduced,  the  situation  re- 
appears in  its  fundamental  outhne.  There  may  be  wide  dif- 
ferences of  detail  in  the  content  of  the  aim,  in  the  selection 
of  the  materials,  but  the  problem  of  realization  of  the  aim  is 
put  in  a  similar  way  and  with  regard  to  this  problem  the  aim 
and  the  materials  undergo  a  similar  determination. 

An  interesting  example  is  furnished  by  the  activity  of 
nourishment.  In  so  far  as  in  this  activity  the  organism,  or 
rather  certain  parts  of  it,  plays  the  role  of  a  set  of  instruments, 
this  set  being  very  definitely  fixed,  every  food  situation  is 
similar  to  all  past  situations;  its  aim,  neither  physical  nor 
psychical,  is  the  organic  status  of  satiety;  its  materials  are 
the  objects  which,  however  different  from  one  another,  are 
similarly  determined  as  food.  But  on  a  certain  level  of  hedo- 
nistic development  a  new  type  of  activity  evolves,  in  which 
the  body  is  no  longer  a  mere  set  of  instruments  for  the  absorp- 
tion of  food,  but  material  for  pleasant  sensations,  and  food  in 
turn  becomes  instrumental  to  the  production  of  these  sensa- 
tions. The  varieties  of  food  which  can  be  used  to  reaUze  the 
aim  of  gastronomic  satisfaction  and  the  number  of  possible 
combinations  of  these  varieties  are  such  that  for  a  refined 
gastronomer  there  can  be  no  repeatable  hedonistic  situations; 


1 88  CULTURAL  REALITY 

all  repetition  there  is  comes  from  the  fact  that  the  food  as 
hedonistic  instrument  is  an  instrument  of  a  secondary  and  de- 
rived character;  its  use  always  presupposes  the  use  of  the 
primary  instrument,  the  body;  the  hedonistic  gastronomic 
activity,  being  grafted  upon  the  organic  activity  of  nourish- 
ment, can  develop  its  variety  of  hedonistic  situations  only  on 
the  uniform  foundation  of  organic  situations. 

The  approximate  reproduction  of  situations  has  a  double 
consequence.  In  so  far  as  the  repeated  situations  have  a 
common  organization,  this  organization  grows  in  stability 
with  every  repetition,  appears  more  and  more  independent  of 
active  thought,  more  and  more  objectively  inherent  in  reality 
itself.  At  the  same  time  the  fact  that  the  materials  with 
which  the  same  instruments  deal  vary  in  some  measure  from 
situation  to  situation  and  yet  can  be  determined  every  time 
in  a  similar  way,  that,  in  other  words,  the  organization  of  the 
situation  can  be  extended  to  new  objects,  makes  this  organiza- 
tion appear  as  not  limited  to  the  actually  given  set  of  objects, 
but  as  indefinitely  applicable  to  a  vague  class  of  future 
experiences.  It  should  be  remembered  that  actuality  never 
Hmits  itself  to  the  present  and  given,  whatever  this  present 
and  given  may  be;  that  actual  thought  transcends  actual 
experience  and  prepares  other  experiences.  At  every  step, 
objective  reality  proves  dependent  on  actual  thought.  It  was 
dependent  on  it  both  for  the  character  of  its  concrete  objects 
and  their  trans-actual  extension  and  duration;  similarly,  it 
is  actual  thought  which  constructs  the  elementary  rational 
systematization  of  objects  and  then  extends  this  systematiza- 
tion  beyond  the  actual  limited  system.  Since  this  system 
itself,  once  constructed,  appears  as  independent  of  active 
thought,  this  tendency  of  actual  thought  to  apply  the  organiza- 
tion of  the  situation  to  new  objects  has  no  longer  the  character 
of  a  tendency  to  create,  but  of  a  tendency  to ^w(/,  certain  objects 
and  connections.  Once  let  it  be  assumed  that  the  determina- 
tion of  objects  in  the  situation  is  fully  real  and  self-existing  and 
it  results  that  the  introduction  of  a  new  object  into  the  situa- 


PRACTICAL  ORGANIZATION  OF  REALITY  189 

tion  seems  dependent  not  merely  on  the  possibility  of  actually 
determining  this  object  in  a  similar  way,  but  on  the  objective 
possession  of  such  a  determination  by  the  object  itself.  For 
instance,  when  the  painter  thinks  of  painting  a  landscape 
somewhat  different  from  those  he  has  painted  before,  his 
problem  is  chiefly  one  of  creating,  not  of  finding;  he  does  not 
ask  himself:  "Are  these  new  objects  fit  to  be  painted?"  but: 
"Can  I  give  these  new  objects  as  my  models  an  aesthetic 
meaning  ?  "  On  the  contrary,  when  a  handworker  is  going  to 
use  a  new  material  to  produce  a  technical  object,  his  problem 
is  chiefly,  if  not  exclusively,  one  of  finding  and  must  be  formu- 
lated: "Is  this  material  fit  for  the  production  of  an  object  of 
the  desired  kind  with  the  given  kind  of  instruments  ?" 

But  such  an  extension  of  the  systematic  organization  pro- 
duced in  the  situation  to  new  objects  makes  this  organization 
appear  as  applicable  beyond  the  Hmits  of  the  one  actually 
constructed  situation  only  in  so  far  as  it  is  successful,  that  is,  as 
the  new  objects  do  possess  the  required  real  characters  in  a  de- 
gree sufficient  for  the  intended  instrumental  activity.  In  the 
contrary  case,  the  situation  evidently  cannot  be  reproduced; 
the  attempt  of  its  reproduction  is  a  failure.  The  failure  can 
be  remedied  only  by  producing  in  the  object  the  expected 
characters  practically,  that  is,  by  making  from  it  a  different 
object.  Since  the  required  object  must  possess  a  degree  of 
realness  fitting  it  to  be  an  element  of  an  instrumental  situation, 
it  can  be  itself  created  only  with  the  help  of  instruments;  and 
since  its  required  character  is  determined  in  advance,  a  new 
situation  must  be  constructed  on  the  ground  of  which  the 
production  of  the  required  character  will  be  at  least  approxi- 
mately assured.  This  is  a  practical  problem  which  leads  to  a 
further  step  in  the  rational  organization  of  reality. 

THE    SCHEME 

The  question  of  failure  and  success  in  the  sense  in  which 
it  is  commonly  understood,  that  is,  as  failure  or  success  in 
attaining  a  certain  result  by  actually  performed  acts,  does  not 


igo  CULTURAL  REALITY 

exist  in  non-organized  activity,  in  which  each  act,  being  inde- 
pendent, bears  the  standard  of  its  success  in  itself,  is  always 
successful  when  performed  and  because  performed.    In  organ- 
ized concrete  activity,  in  so  far  as  it  is  continuous  and  not 
divided  by  a  situation  into  a  period  of  setting  and  a  period 
of  realizing  the  aim,  there  is  already  an  alternative  of  failure 
or  success  in  performing  an  act,  because  the  results  of  this  act 
are  intended  to  be  such  as  will  co-operate  with  the  results  of 
other  acts  in  creating  a  new  object.     But  as  neither  the  latter, 
nor  the  conditions  in  which  it  has  to  be  created,  is  determined 
in   advance  but  becomes  determined  in  the  very  course  of 
activity,  the  standard  of  success  changes  with  every  act,  for 
every  act  by  bringing  something  new  to  the  determination 
of  the  content  or  meaning  of  the  new  object  and  correspond- 
ingly  to   the  meaning   or   content   of   pre-existing   objects, 
modifies  the  total  result  with  which  the  results  of  the  following 
acts  are  expected  to  harmonize.     Moreover,  the  possibility  of 
failure  or  success  does  not  precede  the  actual  course  of  creation 
but  appears  and  develops  during  it.     The  standards  of  suc- 
cess are  produced  by  activity  itself  and,  while  changing  in 
nature,  grow  in  definiteness  together  with  the  growing  deter- 
mination of  the  new  object  and  of  the  ground  upon  which  it 

is  created. 

The  creation  of  a  work  of  art  shows  this  very  distinctly. 
For  instance,  when  a  novelist  has  only  begun  to  reflect  about 
his  subject,  there  is  very  Httle  limitation  imposed  upon  his 
following  acts;  it  is  aheady  clear  that  those  acts  will  have  to  be 
of  a  certain  general  type,  acts  of  aesthetic  idealization  whose 
results  are  to  be  expressed  in  words;  but  within  this  wide 
field  almost  any  act  is  permitted,  for  preceding  activity  has 
not  yet  produced  anything  definite  that  would  impose  upon 
the  following  acts  clear  conditions  with  which  they  have  to 
count.  But  in  the  measure  in  which  the  content  of  the  work 
and  the  domain  of  human  Hfe  from  which  its  materials  are 
drawn  become  determined,  the  range  of  Hberty  left  for  each 


PRACTICAL  ORGANIZATION  OF  REALITY  191 

subsequent  act  decreases;  the  standards  of  success  become 
more  definite.  The  introduction  of  some  aesthetic  element 
weakening  the  unity  of  the  work  in  so  far  as  already  produced 
is  a  failure  in  so  far  as  it  is  not  in  accordance  with  the  claim 
inherent  in  every  intentional  activity,  that  of  having  all  the 
acts  of  a  series  co-operate  in  producing  a  common  result. 
Failure  and  success  are  not  yet  definitely  opposed;  there  is 
between  them  only  a  difference  of  degree.  For  every  new  act 
in  so  far  as  original  and  spontaneous  has  an  influence  on  the 
total  result  of  preceding  acts  and  modifies  it  in  some,  however 
slight,  measure.  The  question  is  only  whether  the  new  object 
has  already  so  much  unity  and  definiteness  that  it  excludes  too 
far-reaching  modifications,  can  accept  only  a  more  or  less 
definite  kind  of  additions  to  its  content  and  meaning.  Cer- 
tainly, the  unity  of  the  concrete  historical  object  is,  as  we 
know,  also  a  matter  of  degree;  but  the  new  object  in  the 
course  and  within  the  limits  of  its  organized  creation  is  not 
yet  a  concrete  historical  object;  it  is  determined  only  with 
regard  to  the  system  which  is  being  dynamically  constructed 
for  its  creation,  and  this  system,  in  the  measure  in  which  it 
progresses  in  definiteness,  imposes  on  the  new  object  growing 
demands  of  unity.  Thus,  there  comes  a  moment  when  only 
very  definite  new  acts  are  expected,  and  an  act  whose  result 
does  not  agree  with  the  total  results  of  preceding  acts  is  a 
failure.  We  could  also  say  in  this  case,  strictly  speaking,  that 
the  whole  preceding  activity  is  a  failure  if  judged  from  the 
standpoint  of  the  result  of  the  new  act;  but  it  is  clear  that 
usually  it  is  the  standpoint  of  the  total  result  of  preceding  acts 
which  is  taken  as  a  criterion  of  the  success  or  failure  of  each 
new  act  and  not  vice  versa.  An  artist  whose  work  is  near 
its  fulfilment  will  rather  reject  a  new  aesthetic  idea  which 
does  not  fit  into  the  work  than  the  work  itself;  he  will 
prefer  to  perform  one  new  act  instead  of  that  which  failed 
to  harmonize  with  the  preceding  ones  rather  than  recon- 
struct the  entire  organization  and  reshape  his  whole  work, 


192  CULTURAL  REALITY 

giving  thus  a  character  of  failure  to  a  long  series  of  organ- 
ized acts. 

When  a  situation  is  determined,  the  standard  of  success 
evidently  becomes  more  definite.  Since  the  aim  is  settled  and 
the  instruments  and  materials  selected  and  determined,  the 
choice  of  actions  which  can  with  the  given  instruments  and 
materials  realize  the  given  content  is  relatively  small.  It  is 
not,  of  course,  absolutely  Kmited:  the  situation  in  concrete 
activity  is  never  entirely  fixed;  the  determination  of  the  aim 
in  some  measure  evolves  during  its  reaUzation,  and  thus  there 
is  more  than  one  possible  way  of  solving  a  practical  problem 
on  the  given  ground.  But  already  the  situation  constitutes  a 
criterion  not  for  each  separate  act  alone,  but  for  the  whole 
combination  of  acts  by  which  the  problem  will  be  solved.  In 
so  far  as  the  activity  which  is  meant  only  to  realize  the  aim 
still  preserves  some  characters  of  the  primary  concrete  action, 
it  still  remains  true  that  each  particular  act  succeeds  if  its 
result  fits  with  the  total  result  of  preceding  acts  and  fails  in 
the  contrary  case ;  but  upon  this  original  fluid  standardization 
of  particular  acts  is  superimposed  a  new  and  more  fixed 
standard,  bearing  on  the  whole  combination  of  acts  composing 
the  second,  realizing  period  of  the  concrete  action.  This  total 
combination  of  acts  is  either  a  failure  or  a  success  from  the 
standpoint  of  the  situation.  Neither  failure  nor  success  is 
complete:  the  instrumental  activity  always  realizes  some- 
thing, and  this  something  never  exactly  corresponds  to  its 
aim.  But  in  the  gradation  of  partial  failures  or  successes 
the  two  ideal  hmits  of  complete  failure  or  complete  success 
are  very  definitely  opposed,  and  an  action  can  be  judged 
clearly  in  the  measure  in  which  it  approaches  either  of  these 
limits. 

It  is  manifest  that  a  particular  unique  situation  gives  us 
no  foundation  by  which  we  can  judge  the  success  or  failure 
of  the  activity  which  led  to  its  formation,  of  the  first,  non- 
instrumental  period  of  action.     There  can  be  no  failure,  no 


PRACTICAL  ORGANIZATION  OF  REALITY  193 

"error,"  in  practically  determining  a  situation,  for  every 
situation,  such  as  it  is  determined,  is  soluble.  It  is  always 
possible  to  realize  the  given  aim  with  the  given  materials, 
for  the  aim  has  been  determined  in  its  content  with  regard 
to  the  conditions  of  its  realization;  it  is  always  possible  to 
use  the  given  materials  for  the  reahzation  of  the  aim,  for 
the  materials  have  been  selected  and  determined  for  the  sake 
of  this  realization;  and  the  instruments  necessary  are  there, 
for  it  is  precisely  their  presence  in  the  situation  which  has  led 
to  this  particular  determination  of  the  aim  and  of  the 
materials.  The  situation  is  ready  only  when  all  this  reciprocal 
determination  has  been  reached;  once  ready,  it  does  not 
matter  how  it  has  been  reached. 

The  activity  which  constructs  a  situation  becomes  sub- 
jected to  the  criterion  of  success  only  when  the  situation 
which  is  being  constructed  has  to  be  similar  to  some  past 
situation  in  spite  of  the  more  or  less  changed  circumstances. 
Success  and  failure  then  depend  on  the  existence,  within  the 
sphere  of  reality  in  which  the  situation  has  to  be  reconstructed, 
of  objects  whose  contents  and  connections  present  the  char- 
acters required  by  the  situation.  If  these  conditions  are  not 
fulfilled,  the  situation  cannot  be  reconstructed  until  an 
auxiliary  action  has  modified  reality  in  such  a  way  as  the 
situation  needs.  But,  since  this  auxihary  action  has  to  satisfy 
certain  definite  requirements  as  to  its  result,  since  it  has  to 
produce  an  object  determined  in  advance,  it  can  fulfil  this 
demand  of  the  original  situation  and  be  successful  only  if  it 
can  construct  for  itself  a  situation  whose  solution  will  lead 
to  the  required  result,  and  this  is  possible  only  if  it  reproduces 
in  turn  an  already  defined  situation  whose  solution  has  proved 
in  the  past  to  be  the  needed  one.  Thus,  with  regard  to  this 
auxihary  action  a  problem  arises  similar  to  that  regarding  the 
original  action— how  to  reproduce  a  situation.  Again  sub- 
auxiliary  actions  are  required,  and  thus  the  original  action 
may  necessitate  a  large  complex  of  subordinate  actions;   the 


194  CULTURAL  REALITY 

original  situation  becomes   a  center   to  which,   directly  or 
indirectly,  many  other  situations  converge. 

It  is  hardly  necessary  to  quote  particular  examples  of  such 
an  expansion  of  the  practical  organization  of  reality.  Every 
more  or  less  complicated  political  activity,  every  business 
enterprise,  involves  a  system  of  situations  in  which  the  main 
practical  problem  can  be  put  and  solved  in  accordance  with 
past  experience  and  reflection  only  by  putting  and  solving  a 
number  of  subordinate  practical  problems  whose  solution 
prepares  the  necessary  materials  and  instruments.  It  is,  how- 
ever, clear  that  if  this  system  of  situations  is  not  organized 
in  advance,  but  has  to  be  organized  in  the  very  course  of 
activity,  the  result  cannot  be  exactly  the  required  one,  for 
the  exact  reconstruction  of  the  main  situation  depends  on  the 
exact  reconstruction  of  the  subordinate  situations,  which  in 
turn  cannot  be  exactly  reconstructed  without  the  help  of  still 
other  situations,  etc.  It  is  not  only  practically  impossible  to 
follow  this  development  too  far  into  detail,  but  by  attempting 
a  too  perfect  result  we  increase  the  chances  of  failure,  for  the 
wider  the  field  embraced  by  activity  the  more  concrete  changes 
of  empirical  reality  it  has  to  face,  the  more  unexpected  and  new 
problems  it  must  put  and  solve,  and  the  more  numerous  its 
difficulties.  Therefore  all  activity  which  has  to  construct 
such  systems  of  situations  spontaneously  during  its  develop- 
ment must  be  satisfied  with  approximate  success  and  be  able 
to  redefine  its  main  aim  and  its  main  situation  from  moment 
to  moment,  so  as  to  be  able  to  meet  the  unexpected  and 
undesired,  to  proceed  in  spite  of  the  partial  failures  of  sub- 
ordinate activities.  Every  politician  and  business  man  knows 
this.  The  point  is  that  the  situation  could  be  perfectly 
reproduced  only  if  during  its  reproduction  it  could  be  prac- 
tically isolated  from  concrete  reality  and  made  independent  of 
concrete  historical  becoming.  By  creating  auxiliary  situa- 
tions when  needed  in  the  course  of  the  reproduction  of  the 
main  situation,  we  remove  indeed  from  case  to  case  the  chief 


PRACTICAL  ORGANIZATION  OF  REALITY  195 

hindrances  which  reality  opposes  at  that  particular  moment 
and  at  that  particular  place  to  this  reproduction;  but  since 
we  have  to  extend  the  sphere  of  our  activity,  we  open  an  ever- 
wider  field  for  future  new  and  unexpected  hindrances,  due  to 
the  fact  that  every  new  element  which  we  use  is  a  concrete 
historical  object  with  innumerable  dynamic  connections;  thus, 
we  introduce  our  situation  deeper  and  deeper  into  the  concrete 
irrational  reality.  This  difficulty  is  obviated  by  the  scheme. 
The  scheme  can  be  defined  as  a  set  of  practical  rules 
determining  once  and  forever,  in  all  its  essential  elements, 
a  situation  of  a  certain  type.  An  exhaustive  theory  of  the 
scheme  requires  a  general  theory  of  activity  which  cannot 
be  given  here.  One  important  point  must  be  noticed.  The 
rules  composing  the  scheme  are  evidently  not  external  general 
formulae  with  which  activity  complies  as  a  result  of  a  self- 
conscious  abstract  reflection,  but  concrete,  uniform,  and 
permanent  practical  tendencies  inherent  and  manifested  in 
activity  itself  and  spontaneously  followed  by  the  latter. 
Thus,  the  oldest,  the  primary  schemes  are  instincts,  with  their 
permanent  tendency  and  increasing  ability  of  reconstructing 
fundamentally  similar  situations  in  varying  circumstances,  in 
this  essentially  differing  from  mere  habits,  whose  uniformity  is 
due  to  the  recurrence  of  the  same  circumstances  already 
schematically  arranged.  Of  course,  a  rule  or  a  scheme  may 
be  abstractly  formulated ;  the  principles  which  the  technician 
learns  in  school,  the  laws  as  expressed  by  legislation  and 
codified,  are  precisely  such  formulae  of  practical  schemes, 
sometimes  obtained  by  induction  from  practical  situations, 
sometimes  deduced  from  other  already  formulated  principles. 
But  the  formula  of  the  scheme  is  not  the  scheme,  just  as  a 
term  is  not  the  object  to  which  it  appHes.  The  entire  reality 
of  the  scheme  lies  in  the  very  fact  of  its  actual  appUcation  and 
is  dependent  on  the  number  and  variety  of  concrete  activities 
which  it  succeeds  in  regulating.  The  formulated  rules  of 
technique  or  prescriptions  of  law  are  empty  words  unless 


196  CULTURAL  REALITY 

applied  in  action.  In  fact,  the  mere  act  of  "understanding" 
them,  of  applying  them  mentally,  is  already  a  beginning  of 
their  application ;  the  mere  thinking  of  a  certain  organization 
of  objects  is  already  organizing  these  objects.  This  explains 
how  a  new,  abstractly  formulated  rule  can  become  a  real 
concrete  rule  applied  in  practice:  its  concrete  technical  or 
social  use  is  only  an  extension  of  its  mental  use  which  has 
preceded  its  abstract  formulation  in  words.  But  it  needs 
many  activities  to  pass  from  a  mental  appHcation  of  the 
scheme  to  its  full  instrumental  application,  from  situations 
constructed  by  the  technician  at  his  desk  to  the  situations 
constructed  in  the  factory  with  the  help  of  human  bodies  and 
other  technical  instruments,  from  legal  rules  mentally  applied 
by  the  legislator  to  these  same  rules  applied  by  the  judiciary 
and  executive  to  concrete  social  situations.  The  auxiliary 
activities  necessary  to  pass  from  the  "planned"  schematic 
organization  to  the  "effected"  schematic  organization  are  a 
measure  of  the  difference  of  realness  between  a  mentally 
realized  and  an  instrumentally  realized  scheme. 

The  way  in  which  the  scheme  makes  the  exact  reproduction 
of  a  situation  possible  independently  of  the  concrete  evolution 
of  reality  is  by  making  this  situation  become  the  aim  for  which 
other  instrumental  activities  have  to  co-operate.  Instead  of 
waiting  to  have  auxihary  situations  called  for  from  case  to 
case  whenever  the  main  situation  fails  to  be  constructed 
because  of  the  lack  of  certain  objects  or  connections  within  the 
given  sphere  of  reality,  which,  as  we  have  seen,  leads  to 
numerous  complications  and  prevents  the  actual  result  from 
being  ever  identical  with  the  expected  one,  we  organize  in 
advance  all  the  auxiliary  situations  necessary  to  have  our  main 
situation  appear.  Each  of  these  auxiliary  situations  sepa- 
rately does  not  have  then  to  be  exactly  determined  in  advance, 
does  not  have  to  produce  necessarily  a  certain  unique  result 
which  would  exactly  fit  into  the  ready  framework  of  the  main 
situation.     For  various  auxiliary  situations  can  co-operate 


PRACTICAL  ORGANIZATION  OF  REALITY  197 

in  the  course  of  their  actual  dynamic  organization  and  their 
results,  even  if  each  of  them  should  not  be  such  as  the  main 
situation  requires,  can  be  step  by  step  supplemented  by  others 
so  as  to  realize  finally  together  the  main  situation  almost 
exactly  as  needed.  Thus  we  avoid  having  the  difficulty  which 
we  faced  in  reconstructing  the  main  situation  repeated  for  each 
auxiliary  situation.  And  we  can  in  a  large  measure  base 
ourselves  on  whatever  practical  organization  of  reality  is 
actually  possible.  If  there  is  a  possibihty  of  obtaining  by 
any  combination  of  any  auxiHary  situations  all  the  essential 
elements  of  our  main  situation,  we  actually  do  construct  the 
latter;  otherwise  we  do  not,  but  may  perhaps  put  such 
auxihary  situations  as  are  actually  possible  to  produce  at  the 
disposal  of  some  other  scheme.  It  is  the  scheme  itself  which, 
by  determining  once  and  forever  the  essential  requirements 
for  a  given  type  of  situations,  permits  us  to  judge  in  each 
case  about  the  possibility  or  impossibihty  of  its  reconstruction 
and  thus  spares  us  failures. 

We  find  again,  on  a  wider  scale,  the  same  type  of  dynamic 
actual  organization  which  is  at  the  basis  of  each  situation  in 
particular;  only  here,  instead  of  single  objects,  whole  systems 
of  objects,  whole  situations,  are  the  elements  which  we  organ- 
ize. The  main  situation  is  the  new  status  which  we  want  to 
produce— new,  of  course,  only  within  the  limits  of  the  present 
activity.  The  auxiliary  situations  are  the  pre-existing  reality 
on  the  ground  of  which  this  status  has  to  be  made  real.  It 
would  seem  as  if,  the  main  situation  being  determined  once 
and  forever  by  the  scheme,  the  status  to  be  produced  were  in 
advance  imposed  as  an  aim  on  activity.  And  yet  it  is  not  so, 
since  its  actual  acceptance  as  an  aim  depends  on  the  actual 
preparation  of  the  conditions  necessary  for  its  reahzation. 
The  main  situation  as  determined  by  the  scheme  is  only  a 
model,  and  it  depends  on  present  organizing  activity  which 
one  of  the  many  models  existing  in  the  practical  world  it  will 
accept  for  the  situation  which  it  tends  to  realize  with  the  help 


iqS  cultural  reality 

of  other  actually  realizable  situations.  The  model  situation 
is  not  passively  accepted.  The  whole  first  part  of  organizing 
activity  consists  in  actively,  though  only  mentally,  recon- 
structing this  situation  in  its  content,  as  an  aim,  from  the 
standpoint  of  and  with  reference  to  those  auxihary  situations 
which  are  possible  to  realize  in  the  given  sphere  of  reality; 
and  vice  versa,  in  the  measure  in  which  the  content  of  the 
future  situation  becomes  determined  and  approaches  to  a 
certain  schematic  model,  organizing  activity  selects  and 
reconstructs  mentally,  from  among  the  auxihary  situations 
which  are  possible  to  realize  in  the  given  sphere  of  reahty, 
those  which  can  be  made  to  co-operate  in  realizing  this  model 
situation.  When  thus  at  a  certain  moment  our  activity  has 
definitively  accepted  a  certain  schematically  determined 
situation  as  an  aim  to  be  reahzed  with  the  help  of  auxihary 
situations,  it  is  because  at  this  moment  the  first,  mental,  part 
of  this  activity  has  been  finished,  all  the  auxiliary  situations 
necessary  to  realize  the  model  situation  have  been  selected  and 
mentally  combined  into  a  system  of  situations  which,  gradually 
realized  with  the  help  of  various  instrumental  activities,  will 
bring  the  aim,  the  given  schematic  situation,  into  reality. 

The  field  of  material  technique  is  the  one  in  which  schemes 
have  reached  the  widest  extension  and  the  greatest  exactness. 
Every  case  of  industrialization  of  a  technical  creation,  that  is, 
every  case  when  a  technical  object  has  to  be  many  times 
reproduced,  requires  schematizing  activity,  for  such  a  mul- 
tiple reproduction  requires  a  model  situation  schematically 
defined  once  and  forever  as  including  very  definite  instruments 
and  very  definite  materials,  and  in  view  of  the  continuous 
evolution  of  concrete  reality  this  model  situation  can  reappear 
time  after  time  only  if  intentionally  prepared  in  advance. 
Though  a  few  of  its  elements,  such  as,  for  instance,  artificial 
instruments,  may  last  for  some  periods  without  very  marked 
modifications,  others,  such  as  the  physical  materials,  must  be 
almost   completely   prepared   again   and   again   by   specific, 


PRACTICAL  ORGANIZATION  OF  REALITY  199 

sometimes  very  complicated,  activities,  while  others  still,  such 
as  the  organic  conditions  of  the  worker  and  the  economic 
conditions  imposed  by  his  social  environment,  though  more  or 
less  durable  in  their  concrete  historical  realness,  must  be 
specially  determined  from  case  to  case  so  as  to  be  utilizable 
for  this  particular  schematic  situation. 

The  whole  question  appears  with  particular  clearness  in 
the  early  stage  of  industrial  production  when  the  higher  form 
of  practical  organization  of  which  we  shall  speak  in  the  next 
section  has  not  yet  been  developed ;  when  there  is  neither  a  far- 
reaching  individual  specialization  nor  a  wide  social  division  of 
labor  and  co-operation,  and  the  system  of  economic  exchange 
has  not  yet  embraced  the  whole  field  of  technical  instruments 
and  materials  and  bears  almost  entirely  on  ready  products. 
At  this  stage,  each  individual  has  numerous  technical  schemes, 
numerous  models  of  situations  at  his  disposal,  and  there  is  no 
principle  which  would  compel  him  to  work  only  for  one  of 
these  models,  to  produce  only  one  kind  of  technical  values; 
at  the  same  time,  he  could  not  specialize  thus  even  if  he 
wanted,  for  having  to  do  most  of  the  preparatory  activities 
himself  for  each  model  situation,  from  case  to  case,  he  is  very 
much  dependent  on  the  existing  conditions  for  the  realization 
of  any  of  these  model  situations.  Thus,  we  find  the  technical 
activities  of  an  individual  on  a  low  level  of  civiUzation  depend- 
ing in  an  approximately  equal  measure,  from  case  to  case,  on 
the  present  demand  for  certain  definite  technical  products,  and 
on  the  possibilities  of  producing  which  are  offered  by  the 
existing  conditions  given  within  his  present  sphere  of  reahty. 
The  existing  conditions  make  the  actual  realization  of  certain 
model  situations  easier  than  that  of  others;  the  actual  demand 
for  certain  products  is  more  insistent  than  for  others;  what  the 
individual  will  then  actually  do,  what  kind  of  model  situation 
will  be  selected  by  his  present  mental  activity,  and  made  the 
aim  of  his  instrumental  preparatory  activity,  depends  on  the 
actual  dynamic  combination  of  both  conditions  and  demanded 


200  CULTURAL  REALITY 

models,  and  will  become  settled  only  when  the  individual 
definitively  adapts  a  certain  model  to  certain  actual  possi- 
bihties  and  certain  actual  possibilities  to  a  certain  model. 

Good  examples  of  schemes  are  also  found  in  the  legal  field. 
Any  situation  which  civil  or  criminal  law  defines  and  which  is 
expected  to  be  solved  by  compensation  or  punishment  would 
perhaps  never  be  empirically  realized  without  schematizing 
activity.  To  produce  a  definite  juridical  situation  we  need, 
first,  a  certain  concrete  set  of  social  conditions  to  which  a 
certain  law  will  be  appHed ;  secondly,  a  set  of  social  ana  legal 
proceedings  constructing  and  solving  their  specific  situations, 
collecting  evidence,  bringing  the  case  to  the  notice  of  the 
court,  organizing  a  sitting  of  the  court,  calling  the  parties  and 
witnesses  before  the  judge,  etc.  It  has  become  the  special 
task  of  the  lawyer  to  construct  the  schematic  legal  situation  on 
the  ground  and  with  the  help  of  these  other  situations — some 
of  them  already  given  in  social  life  and  needing  only  to  be 
redefined  from  the  legal  standpoint,  some  especially  con- 
structed by  him  for  the  actual  purpose — by  determining  them 
with  regard  to  one  another  and  having  them  co-operate  in 
creating  all  the  essential  elements  of  the  situation  as  defined 
once  and  forever  by  the  given  law.  The  lawyer's  activity 
results  thus  in  the  gradual  dynamic  organization  of  a  set  of 
actually  reahzed  or  reahzable  auxiliary  situations  for  the 
production  of  the  required  legal  situation;  all  the  other  situa- 
tions, that  is,  the  pre-existing  social  conditions  to  which  the 
given  law  appears  as  applicable  and  the  auxiliary  situations 
which  bring  these  conditions  within  the  reach  of  the  court, 
constitute  for  the  lawyer  the  material  and  instruments  per- 
mitting him  to  realize  the  model  situation  defined  by  the  law, 
and  they  become  specially  adapted  to  this  aim  in  the  measure 
the  latter  becomes  determined.  On  the  other  hand,  however, 
just  as  the  primitive  technician  has  many  technical  schemes 
at  his  disposal  among  which  he  selects  during  the  first,  mental, 
part  of  his  activity  the  one  which  he  is  going  to  actualize  now 


PRACTICAL  ORGANIZATION  OF  REALITY  201 

and  here,  taking  into  account  the  demand  for  certain  results 
and  the  actual  conditions  permitting  him  to  realize  some 
schemes  more  easily  than  others,  so  the  lawyer  is  acquainted 
with  many  different  laws  which  he  can  actuaUze,  but  of  which 
only  a  few  prove  on  reflection  appUcable  to  the  given 
conditions.  And  even  this  narrow  field  from  which  he  can 
choose  the  model  situation  that  will  be  his  aim  narrows  still 
more  as  the  progress  of  legal  procedure,  by  introducing  new 
auxiliary  situations,  imposes  new  conditions  with  which  the 
lawyer's  aim  must  comply;  so  that  finally  the  legal  situation 
aimed  at  becomes  completely  determined  for  him  as  the  one 
which  a  certain  particular  law  has  regulated  once  and  forever. 
Of  course,  the  lawyer  imagines  that  the  situation  is  already 
given  in  fact  and  that  he  merely  discovers  it  and  brings  it 
under  the  appropriate  law,  but  this  is  the  usual,  realistic 
illusion  of  common  sense  which  treats  the  results  of  activity  as 
independent  of  activity  simply  because  while  acting  it  cannot 
reflect  about  the  course  of  activity. 

The  first  effect  of  the  scheme  upon  concrete  reaUty  is  thus 
to  produce  a  more  or  less  rational  system  which  is  wider  than 
a  situation.  In  each  particular  case  in  which  the  main 
schematic  situation  must  be  produced  there  is  a  system  of 
auxihary  situations  created,  each  connected  with  the  others  by 
the  fact  that  its  solution  becomes  one  of  the  data  of  the 
practical  problem  which  the  demand  for  the  realization  of  the 
main  situation  defines,  and  is  combined  with  the  solution  of 
other  auxiliary  situations  for  this  common  result.  Of  course, 
the  particular  elementary  objects  included  in  different  situa- 
tions are  only  indirectly  connected  with  each  other;  the  rational 
organization  which  the  scheme  creates  is  not  as  close  as  that 
which  unifies  objects  within  a  single  situation.  This  is  pre- 
cisely one  of  the  important  points  about  the  organization 
of  reaHty :  there  is  no  other  direct  and  immediate  systematiza- 
tion  of  objects  except  the  situation,  and  not  the  single  object 
but  a  system  of  objects,  taken  as  an  indivisible  whole,  is  the 


202  CULTURAL  REALITY 

real  unit  of  all  wider  and  more  complicated  organizations  which 
we  find  in  practical  life.  The  ultimate  unit  of  the  schematic 
organization  is  the  situation,  and  the  scheme  itself  with  all 
the  situations  which  it  includes  can  become  an  ultimate  unit 
in  a  still  wider  system.  Each  of  the  various  situations  which 
are  organized  into  a  system  for  the  production  of  a  model 
situation  is  in  the  course  of  this  actual  organization 
objectivated  as  one  content  and  connected  in  this  character 
with  the  other,  equally  objectivated,  situations.  This  or- 
ganization affects  each  auxiliary  situation  as  a  whole;  in  so 
far  as  the  result  of  this  situation  must  be  combined  with  the 
results  of  others  for  the  realization  of  the  model  situation, 
this  auxiliary  situation  will  have  to  be  instrumentally  solved 
at  a  certain  moment  and  at  a  certain  place,  before,  after,  or 
together  with  certain  other  situations  included  in  the  same 
system :  in  short,  there  is  an  order  introduced  among  the  aux- 
iliary situations.  However,  this  order  does  not  affect  directly 
the  objects  included  within  these  situations ;  each  of  the  latter 
has  its  own  special  practical  problem  to  solve  and  its  solution 
follows  its  own  particular  way  quite  independently  of  the  use 
which  will  be  made  of  the  result  once  attained. 

But  the  scheme,  while  leaving  untouched  the  internal 
constitution  of  the  auxiliary  situations,  does  influence  the 
organization  of  the  main  situation  which  it  regulates.  By 
making  this  situation  a  permanent  aim  of  schematizing 
activities,  it  gives  it  a  still  higher  degree  of  definiteness  than  it 
could  reach  by  itself,  even  if  an  exceptional  permanence  of 
circumstances  permitted  it  to  be  reconstructed  again  and  again 
without  the  help  of  a  schematic  organization  of  auxiliary 
situations.  Since  the  schematized  situation  with  all  its  ele- 
ments is  determined  in  advance  once  and  for  all,  before  being 
actually  constructed,  it  is  given  from  case  to  case  as  an  object- 
matter  of  active  thought,  which  the  latter  may  reaUze  or  not 
in  concrete  reahty,  but  which  it  should  not  modify  in  its 
systematic   order,   for   such   a  modification   would  mean   a 


PRACTICAL  ORGANIZATION  OF  REALITY  203 

substitution  of  another  situation  instead  of  the  one  required  by 
the  scheme.  The  composition  and  systematization  of  this 
situation  appear  thus  as  independent  of  any  particular 
activity  which  reproduces  it.  This  independence  does  not 
consist  only,  as  in  complexes  stabilized  by  mere  repetition, 
in  a  relatively  strong  suggestion  of  certain  connections:  the 
character  which  each  element,  thing  or  relation,  possesses 
with  reference  to  other  elements  appears  as  not  merely  given 
and  real,  but  as  necessary  for  this  situation.  There  is  from 
the  standpoint  of  the  scheme  no  other  way  possible  of  putting 
and  solving  the  practical  problem  involved  in  the  model 
situation  than  the  one  which  the  scheme  has  defined  and  which 
the  auxiliary  situations  have  to  prepare  from  case  to  case. 
The  activity  which  in  a  particular  case  actually  will  reconstruct 
and  realize  the  model  situation  after  having  prepared  it,  is 
in  advance  deprived  of  all  initiative;  it  must  follow  the  Hnes 
traced  by  the  scheme,  precisely  because  all  spontaneous 
efforts  are  concentrated  in  those  preparatory  activities  whose 
common  purpose  is  to  make  the  exact  realization  of  the 
demand  of  the  scheme  practically  possible,  and  which  would 
be  deprived  of  their  significance,  would  acquire  the  char- 
acter of  failure  if  the  problem  of  the  model  situation  for 
which  they  have  worked  were  not  put  and  solved  in  the 
required  way. 

In  fact,  under  these  circumstances  there  is  no  longer  any 
problem  left,  since  its  solution  is  given  in  advance.  When  in  a 
non-schematic  situation  the  aim  has  to  be  realized  with  the 
help  of  given  instruments  and  materials,  its  realization  is  a 
problem  whose  solution  is  not  yet  at  hand,  though  all  the  data 
are  ready.  The  result  of  the  activity  which  is  expected  to 
realize  this  aim  will  have  to  comply  with  the  conditions 
imposed  by  the  situation,  but  how  it  will  comply  with  them 
depends  on  the  activity  which  will  produce  this  result;  in 
fact  it  depends  on  the  nature  of  the  modifications  which  it  will 
bring  into  the  given  materials  with  the  given  instruments. 


204  CULTURAL  REALITY 

The  result,  at  the  moment  when  the  situation  is  constructed, 
opposes  itself  to  the  materials  and  instruments;  the  latter 
already  exist  in  their  full  content  and  meaning,  the  former  is 
determined  as  to  its  content,  but  not  yet  as  to  its  meaning; 
it  is  unreal  as  against  the  real  situation  and  its  reahzation  is  a 
task  which  activity  will  freely  accept  and  fulfil.  But  when  the 
situation  is  schematically  objectivated  in  advance,  the  result 
is  also  objectivated  in  advance;  the  object  which  will  be 
produced  on  the  ground  of  the  situation  is  as  much  defined, 
both  in  its  content  and  in  its  meaning,  as  the  instruments  and 
materials  with  the  help  of  which  it  will  be  realized ;  its  level  of 
realness  is  the  same.  Of  course,  while  we  are  preparing  the 
ground  for  a  reproduction  of  the  model  situation,  the  solution 
of  this  situation  does  not  possess  full  realness,  is  only  mentally 
real;  neither  does  the  situation  itself  yet  exist  otherwise  than 
mentally.  The  situation  and  its  solution  together  constitute 
one  aim  of  our  preparatory  activities.  The  materials  and 
instruments  necessary  to  produce  a  certain  object  and  this 
object  which  will  be  produced  with  their  help,  with  all  their 
contents  and  meanings,  are  given  at  the  moment  when  we 
prepare  their  realization  as  one  content  which  our  preparatory 
activity  will  make  real.  The  result  to  which  the  future 
situation  will  lead  is  as  definite,  as  completely  characterized 
as  this  situation  itself. 

When  preparing  the  realization  of  this  situation,  we  do  not 
separate  the  question,  "How  will  this  situation  be  solved?" 
from  the  question,  "How  will  this  situation  be  constructed?" 
The  two  questions  are  melted  in  one;  we  prepare  the  con- 
struction of  the  situation  in  view  of  the  definite  result  to  which 
we  want  this  situation  to  lead;  we  prepare  the  result  in  pre- 
paring the  situation.  The  determined  situation  appears  as 
necessary  to  produce  the  determined  result,  and  no  other  but 
the  determined  result  can  be  produced  when  the  determined 
situation  is  constructed;  this  occurs  whenever  and  wherever 
this  situation  is  prepared  and  actualized. 


PRACTICAL  ORGANIZATION  OF  REALITY  205 

Thus,  the  actual  dynamic  finahty  of  the  aim  is  supplanted 
by  a  trans-actual  static  finality  of  end  and  means.  The  reahza- 
tion  of  a  definite  set  of  means  is  always  and  everywhere  neces- 
sary for  the  realization  of  a  certain  end,  and  only  a  certain 
definite  end  is  objectively  realizable  on  the  ground  of  a  certain 
set  of  reahzed  means.  The  situation  and  its  solution  being 
once  and  forever  determined  by  the  scheme  and  indefinitely 
reconstructible,  the  reciprocal  determination  of  end  and  means 
is  independent  of  any  particular  actualization  of  this  whole 
system;  it  is  based  on  the  objective  nature  of  end  and  means 
as  determined  by  the  scheme  and  becomes  thus  a  relation  of 
finality. 

This  is  not  all.  Since  the  result  of  the  instrumental 
activity  which  will  solve  the  schematized  situation  is  deter- 
mined in  advance,  the  modifications  of  pre-existing  objects 
which  by  their  combination  will  produce  this  result  are  also 
determined  in  advance.  There  is  only  one  way  of  reaching 
the  given  end  with  the  given  means,  and  every  step  in  this 
direction  must  be  such  as  required;  activity  has  no  choice. 
The  act  ceases  to  count  as  act  of  creation  bringing  a  new 
content  and  meaning  into  the  world;  it  counts  only  because  it 
starts,  at  a  given  moment  and  in  a  given  place,  an  occurrence 
which  is  already  fully  determined  in  its  objective  nature,  and 
has  only  to  be  realized  once  more  in  the  given  circumstances. 
The  act  would  not  count  at  all  if  the  situations  determined  by 
the  scheme  were  not  parts  of  the  concrete  empirical  world  and, 
though  meant  to  be  identical  in  their  composition  and 
organization,  did  not  differ  from  one  another  by  their  appear- 
ance at  different  now's  of  the  concrete  duration  and  at  different 
here's  of  the  concrete  extension.  As  it  is,  acts  are  still  neces- 
sary to  realize  empirically  in  actuality  the  modifications 
required  by  the  schematized  situation;  but  what  is  essential 
from  the  standpoint  not  of  actual  experience,  but  of  the 
rational  order  of  the  situation  itself,  is  only  the  determined 
nature  of  the  modification,  its  real,  not  its  ideal  side.     When  a 


2o6  CULTURAL  REALITY 

technical  worker  modifies  a  given  material  in  a  schematically 
prescribed  way,  it  does  not  matter  at  all  from  the  standpoint 
of  the  technical  situation  what  he  wants  and  thinks  in  doing  it, 
what  are  the  factors  which  have  brought  him  to  perform  this 
action  there  and  then,  how  much  conscious  effort  and  how 
much  habit  is  involved  in  this  action,  etc. ;  what  counts  is  a 
certain  movement  of  his  body  which  leads  to  certain  move- 
ments of  technical  instruments,  which  lead  in  turn  to  a 
certain  modification  of  the  material. 

As  these  modifications  are  completely  determined  with 
regard  to  the  definite  situation  and  to  the  result  to  which  this 
situation  is  expected  necessarily  to  lead,  their  character  is  no 
longer  the  same  as  in  concrete  activity;  the  situation  being 
constituted  by  things  with  definite  properties  and  relations, 
each  modification  is  a  disappearance  from  the  situation  of  some 
property  or  relation  and  an  appearance  of  some  other  property 
or  relation.  It  does  not  matter  that  concretely  those  char- 
acters of  objects  which  disappeared  continue  to  exist  as 
contents  and  meanings  in  memory,  though  with  less  realness, 
whereas  those  which  appeared  did  not  exist  at  all  before  being 
created,  so  that  the  act  produces  really  more  than  it  destroys: 
from  the  abstractly  rational  standpoint  of  the  scheme  which 
determines  both  the  situation  and  its  solution  there  is  no 
difference  of  realness  between  destruction  and  production. 
Both  ideally  subsist  forever  in  the  scheme  as  equally  necessary 
stages  for  the  attainment  of  the  end ;  both  really  appear  when- 
ever the  scheme  is  applied  in  the  concrete  development  of 
experience,  and  being  fully  determined  in  advance  can  bring 
nothing  new  except  the  mere  fact  of  their  appearance.  They 
correspond  to  each  other  and  presuppose  each  other,  so  that 
their  appearance  is  one  indivisible  fact  which,  viewed  from 
the  standpoint  of  the  means  is  a  destruction,  but  viewed 
from  the  standpoint  of  the  end  is  a  production,  and  from  the 
standpoint  of  the  relation  between  end  and  means  is  a  sub- 
stitution of  one  property  or  relation  for  another,  that  is,  a 


PRACTICAL  ORGANIZATION  OF  REALITY  207 

change.  In  so  far,  now,  as  this  change  is  supposed  to  be  only 
started  in  its  actual  appearance  but  not  created  in  its  objective 
nature  by  an  act  of  thought,  its  progressive  realization  on  the 
ground  of  the  teleologically  determined  situation  is  a  real 
process. 

Each  particular  process  is  a  necessary  link  of  the  develop- 
ment leading  from  the  situation  to  the  result,  from  the  means 
to  the  end.  The  connection  between  processes  is  not  dynami- 
cally created  in  the  very  course  of  activity,  like  the  connection 
between  creative  modifications  which  are  made  step  by  step 
to  combine  in  a  common  result,  but  is  determined  for  all  of 
them  once  and  forever  by  the  schematic  definition  of  the 
means  and  the  end;  all  that  activity  is  supposed  to  do  is  to 
actualize  this  objectively  existing  connection.  Each  process 
has  a  definite  position  in  a  series  of  processes,  the  ground  of 
which  is  that  a  definite  process  requires  a  definite  status  to 
start  with,  and  except  for  the  first  process  which  starts  with 
the  given  situation,  each  of  the  following  ones  is  based  on  the 
status  reached  by  the  preceding  one. 

This  does  not  mean  at  this  stage  of  rationalization  that  the 
following  process  is  the  effect  of  the  preceding  process,  since 
each  process  needs  still  an  act  of  thought  to  be  started;  but 
it  means  that  the  following  process  cannot  be  started  unless 
the  preceding  one  has  occurred.  Since  the  whole  series 
is  objectively  necessary  for  the  realization  of  the  given  end 
with  the  given  means,  each  process  is  objectively  necessary 
for  the  following  one.  Supposing  therefore  the  activities 
demanded  by  the  scheme  actually  performed,  supposing  the 
schematic  situation  constructed  and  developed  up  to  the  end 
in  accordance  with  the  scheme,  the  whole  series  of  processes 
is  fully  and  exclusively  determined  in  its  actual  development 
by  the  teleological  system  of  means  and  ends,  and  each 
process  within  this  series  is  fully  and  exclusively  determined 
in  its  appearance  by  the  following  process  for  which  it  has  to 
prepare  the  necessary  status.     In  a  word,  the  following  process 


2o8  CULTURAL  REALITY 

is  the  final  cause  of  the  preceding  process,  since  if  we  pre- 
suppose a  whole  series  of  teleologically  determined  processes 
actually  developing,  every  process  in  particular  has  no  other 
direct  ground  for  its  appearance  but  the  following  process, 
though  all  of  them  together  are  grounded  not  in  the  end  alone 
(which  therefore  is  not  a  final  cause)  but  in  the  total  organiza- 
tion produced  by  the  scheme.  We  see  that  the  Aristotelian 
concept  of  final  cause  is,  like  many  other  ancient  conceptions, 
quite  unjustly  neglected  by  modern  thought,  since  it  corre- 
sponds to  a  very  real  and  very  important  empirical  connec- 
tion which  is  covered  neither  by  the  concept  of  aim,  nor  that 
of  end,  nor  can  it  be  reduced  to  that  of  mechanical  cause. 

When  the  realization  of  an  end  requires  several  distinct 
parallel  series  of  processes,  each  of  these  series  is  teleologically 
necessary  for  each  other  and  the  connection  of  final  causality 
is  reciprocal  between  any  two  of  these  series. 

It  is  evident  that  the  practical  possibility  of  appl3ang  the 
principle  of  objective  teleological  determination  to  schema- 
tized activity  depends  on  the  degree  of  perfection  to  which 
schematization  has  been  pushed  in  actual  life,  on  the  ejfficiency 
with  which  preparatory  activities  have  been  performed  and 
organized.  If  the  same  schematic  situation  has  been  repeat- 
edly reconstructed  during  a  certain  period,  the  various 
auxiliary  situations  which  have  been  used  from  case  to  case 
for  this  purpose  appear  as  more  or  less  closely  connected  with 
the  main  situation,  so  that  the  latter  becomes  gradually  the 
center  of  a  rather  vague  domain  of  reality  whose  limits  widen 
with  every  new  actualization. 

This  connection  of  auxiliary  situations  with  the  main 
situation  which  is  left  as  a  result  of  past  activities  must  be,  of 
course,  clearly  distinguished  from  the  connection  intentionally 
created  between  auxiliary  situations  in  each  particular  case 
for  the  realization  of  the  main  situation.  The  latter  brings 
forth,  as  we  have  seen,  a  rational  system  of  auxiliary  situations, 
whereas  the  former  is  not  systematic  at  all,  but  appears  as 


PRACTICAL  ORGANIZATION  OF  REALITY  209 

an  unintentional  consequence  of  the  fact  that  all  these  auxil- 
iary situations,  though  belonging  to  different  rational  systems, 
have  served  at  different  moments  to  actualize  the  same  scheme. 
This  connection  between  the  schematic  situation  and  auxiliary 
situations,  like  all  empirical  connections,  grows  in  stability 
with  each  repetition;  thus,  the  more  frequently  a  certain 
auxiliary  situation  has  been  used  for  the  realization  of  the 
main  situation,  the  more  closely  it  appears  connected  with  it. 
Furthermore,  this  connection  exercises  a  suggestive  influence 
on  future  activities,  so  that  we  always  tend  to  use  in  so  far  as 
possible  from  case  to  case  the  same  auxiliary  situations  in 
preparing  the  same  schematic  situation,  and  introduce  new 
auxihary  situations  only  when  the  old  ones  cannot  be  recon- 
structed here  and  now.  Thus,  the  domain  of  reality  which 
grows  around  a  certain  model  situation  is  constituted  first  of 
all  by  the  most  frequently  used  auxiliary  situations.  Though 
it  is  forced,  by  the  evolution  of  the  concrete  historical  reality 
of  which  it  is  a  part,  to  increase  in  complexity  and  variety  by 
having  new  situations  included  in  it,  it  tends  by  virtue  of  its 
own  inertia  to  grow  in  stability  by  having  its  old  situations 
fixed  by  indefinite  reproductions.  Both  its  growth  in  com- 
plexity and  its  growth  in  stability,  while  opposing  and  coun- 
terbalancing each  other,  help  to  give  the  model  situation, 
the  permanent  center  of  this  domain,  a  background  of  con- 
crete experience  and  a  field  of  concrete  active  influence  which 
make  this  situation  more  and  more  real,  more  and  more 
empirically  important  within  the  historical  world. 

A  well-known  example  of  such  a  domain  of  reaHty  growing 
by  the  mere  agglomeration  of  auxiliary  situations  is  found  in 
the  indefinite  but  often  very  wide  and  strong  social  influence 
that  an  institution  gradually  obtains  by  the  mere  continuity 
of  its  functioning,  quite  independent  of  the  objective  impor- 
tance of  its  social  purpose  and  of  the  teleological  perfection 
of  its  organization.  The  mere  fact  that  all  kinds  of  situations, 
some  of  them  repeated  innumerable  times,  have  been  used  at 


2IO  CULTURAL  REALITY 

various  moments  as  subservient  to  the  scheme  which  the 
institution  realizes,  leaves  an  always  wider  and  deeper  mark 
on  social  reality,  a  mark  which,  however  irrational  it  may  be, 
is  very  real,  as  everyone  finds  who  attempts  to  substitute  for 
the  old  institution  a  new,  even  a  more  rational  one.  Still 
deeper  is  that  irrational  but  real  influence  which  our  instincts 
leave  upon  our  "natural"  environment,  though  here  it  is 
rather  difiicult  to  distinguish  this  unintentional  unification 
of  past  experiences  from  the  intentional  unification  and 
organization  of  future  experiences  which  we  shall  study  in  the 
next  section.  An  instinct,  like  that  of  food,  in  its  continual 
manifestations,  uses  innumerable  auxiliary  situations  which 
embrace  a  large  part  of  the  personal  spheres  of  experience  and 
reflection  and  constitute  together  a  rather  chaotic  objective 
domain ;  and,  in  so  far  as  this  domain  is  composed  of  practical 
situations,  the  objects  within  its  limits  appear  no  longer  as  con- 
crete historical  objects  but  as  things  with  definite  properties 
and  relations.  Since  similar  partial  effects  are  produced  by 
all  other  instincts,  the  reality  of  our  practical  life,  as  we  have 
inherited  it  from  our  ancestors  and  reproduced  it  in  our  own 
past,  presents  several  different,  more  or  less  chaotic  complexes 
of  situations  superimposed  upon  the  chaotic  complexity  of 
the  primary  historical  reality,  and  our  objects,  which  are 
concrete,  interconnected  historical  objects  when  viewed  in 
their  total  duration  and  extension  without  regard  to  any 
particular  practical  interest,  appear  as  interrelated  things  as 
soon  as  looked  upon  in  the  light  of  any  past  satisfaction  of  our 
instincts. 

The  scheme,  while  solving  the  difficulties  to  which  the 
reconstruction  of  the  situation  is  subjected  in  the  present  and 
unifying  many  past  situations,  raises  the  problem  of  the 
future,  which  it  cannot  solve  alone.  There  is,  indeed,  no 
certainty  whatever  that  a  given  scheme  wiU  in  fact  be  per- 
manently maintained  in  the  face  of  the  changing  concrete 
reality.     In  each  particular  case  its  realization  depends  on  a 


PRACTICAL  ORGANIZATION  OF  REALITY  211 

more  or  less  spontaneous  and  original  schematizing  activity, 
and  unless  some  higher  organization  is  reached,  the  question 
whether  the  necessary  activities  will  be  performed  at  all  in  the 
future  is  entirely  unsettled.  In  so  far  as  the  scheme  bears  not 
merely  on  the  situation  prepared  and  constructed  at  present, 
but  on  the  situations  which  will  be  prepared  and  constructed  at 
other  periods  of  concrete  duration,  its  continuation  is  not 
implied  in  the  actual  organization  of  reality  over  which  this 
scheme  presides,  but  can  be  only  postulated  by  practical 
thought.  The  scheme  raises  the  problem  of  the  future  in  a 
way  which  precludes  the  easy  solutions  offered  by  those 
theories  which  try  to  explain  our  expectation  of  similar 
experiences  by  our  habit  of  seeing  similar  experiences  regularly 
return  and  are  then  forced  to  appeal  to  an  immanent  absolute 
rationality  of  nature  in  order  to  explain  how  the  habit  is 
formed  and  why  the  expectation  is  justified  from  case  to  case. 
There  is  no  regularity  whatever  originally  existing  in  concrete 
experience ;  all  regularity  must  be  actively  produced  and  main- 
tained, and  this  implies  an  active  control  of  the  future  as  well 
as  an  organization  of  the  present  and  a  unification  of  the  past. 
The  greater  our  claims  on  the  future  in  this  respect,  the 
larger  the  amount  of  regularity  which  we  expect,  the  less  we 
can  rely  upon  the  existing  order  of  reality  to  fulfil  these  claims 
and  our  expectations  must  be  based  upon  permanent  tend- 
encies of  our  activity  rather  than  upon  permanent  characters 
of  its  object-matter.  When  all  we  demand  is  to  have  a 
certain  object  fit  in  the  immediate  future  a  situation  whose 
other  components  are  already  at  hand  and  systematized,  we 
are  concerned  exclusively  with  the  existing  real  characters  of 
this  object  and  rely  upon  them ;  only  if  it  fails  to  satisfy  our 
demand,  we  introduce  a  more  or  less  organized  activity  to 
modify  it  according  to  our  needs.  When  we  want  to  recon- 
struct a  whole  schematically  determined  situation  which  does 
not  exist  yet  within  our  present  sphere  of  reality,  we  make  the 
fulfilment  of  this  demand  dependent  in  varying  proportions 


212  CULTURAL  REALITY 

both  upon  pre-existing  reality  and  upon  our  activity;  we  do 
not  expect  that  reality  will  have  everything  ready  and  waiting 
for  us;  we  rely  on  our  activity  to  supplement  whatever  may 
be  lacking  in  the  given  conditions.  If  now  we  want  positively 
to  maintain  a  certain  schematic  organization  during  an 
indefinite  future  in  the  field  of  actual  interests,  if  we  not  only 
expect  that  it  will  be  occasionally  reconstructed  when  and 
where  the  concrete  real  conditions  happen  to  be  more  favorable 
for  its  reconstruction  than  for  the  actualization  of  other 
schemes,  but  if  we  demand  that  it  be  continually  reconstructed 
in  a  certain  section  of  historical  reality  rather  than  other 
schemes,  whatever  the  concrete  conditions  happen  to  be,  then 
we  evidently  cannot  rely  upon  reality  at  all.  We  can  expect 
our  demand  to  be  realized  only  if  our  activity  is  not  merely 
able  to  profit  from  case  to  case  of  favorable  conditions  in 
order  to  actualize  the  scheme,  but  capable  of  permanently 
realizing  by  its  own  spontaneous  effort  all  the  conditions 
sufficient  and  necessary  for  indefinitely  repeated  actualizations 
of  this  scheme.  This  evidently  requires  an  organization  of 
activities  wider  and  more  stable  than  the  one  which  produces 
a  system  of  situations. 

THE   PEACTICAL  DOGMA   AND   THE    SYSTEM   OF   SCHEMES 

In  all  fields  of  practical  life  we  find  numerous  examples  of 
such  a  connection  between  schemes  that  the  actualization  of 
one  scheme  is  accompanied  or  followed  by  the  actualization 
of  another,  because  the  schematic  situations  are  in  some  way 
permanently  connected.  Thus,  in  technique  we  see  a  factory 
producing  materials  or  instruments  which  other  factories  use 
in  their  production;  in  the  political  field  certain  executive 
acts  follow  certain  acts  of  legislation  or  jurisdiction;  in  the 
field  of  economics  the  performance  of  a  certain  professional 
work  is  followed  by  the  payment  of  a  fee,  etc.  The  given 
actualization  of  one  scheme  constitutes  an  objective  condition 
of  the  actualization  of  the  other. 


PRACTICAL  ORGANIZATION  OF  REALITY  213 

However,  as  long  as  this  connection  is  merely  the  result 
of  the  fact  that  a  certain  schematic  situation  cannot  be  con- 
structed in  a  given  case  without  the  help  of  another,  the 
condition  is  neither  sufficient  nor  necessary.  It  is  not  enough 
to  do  professional  work  in  order  to  receive  a  fee;  many  other 
conditions  are  needed,  ^ich  may  be  completely  different 
from  case  to  case,  unless  lxi«.i8  is  a  stable  customary  or  legal 
regulation  of  professional  work  in  its  relation  to  economic 
schemes.  Nor  is  it  necessary  to  do  professional  work  in  order 
to  receive  a  certain  sum  of  money  in  payment,  for  this  result 
may  be  obtained  in  connection  with  many  other  schemes.  In 
fact,  we  are  still  within  the  limits  of  the  problem  treated  in 
the  preceding  section — the  problem  of  constructing  a  sche- 
matic situation  with  the  help  of  auxiliary  situations  which 
prepare  the  ground  in  advance.  These  auxiliary  situations 
may  be  either  new  and  especially  created  for  the  purpose,  or 
may  be  themselves  schematic  situations  reproduced  for  the 
purpose  with  the  help  of  still  other  auxiliary  situations;  the 
system  of  situations  becomes  thereby  more  complicated,  but 
does  not  change  its  essential  rational  form.  When  a  hand- 
worker finds  that  a  certain  material  which  he  needs  is  out  of 
stock  in  his  town,  he  may  order  it  from  elsewhere  and  thus 
put  into  action  the  complex  schematic  machinery  of  trans- 
portation ;  but  there  is  no  essentially  new  form  of  organization 
of  his  experience  involved  in  this  case,  merely  an  introduction 
of  a  new  situation  into  the  old  organization. 

But  the  connection  between  schemes  may  also  be  such  that 
an  actualization  or  a  series  of  actualizations  of  a  certain  scheme 
or  group  of  schemes  becomes  a  sufficient  and  necessary 
objective  condition  of  an  actualization  or  a  series  of  actualiza- 
tions of  some  other  scheme  or  group  of  schemes,  and  recip- 
rocally; not  in  the  sense  that  this  actualization  should  not 
require  every  time  some  spontaneous  and  original  schematizing 
activity,  some  new  arrangement  of  auxiliary  situations 
preparing  the  ground,  but  in  the  sense  that,  in  whatever  way 


214  CULTURAL  REALITY 

the  main  schematic  situation  may  be  reconstructed  from  case 
to  case,  it  is  meant  to  be  reconstructed  always  whenever  and 
wherever  some  other  schematic  situation  has  been  or  is  be- 
ing reconstructed,  and  vice  versa.  An  agreement  between 
employer  and  employee  in  which  the  latter  is  expected  regu- 
larly to  do  certain  work  and  the  former  regularly  to  pay  him 
certain  wages  is  one  of  the  simplest  and  best-known  connec- 
tions of  this  kind.  It  does  not  preclude  on  either  side  sche- 
matizing activity;  the  employee  must  continually  prepare  for 
his  work,  make  efforts  to  overcome  external  hindrances  or  his 
inability  or  his  laziness,  reconstruct  from  case  to  case  the 
schematically  determined  situation  by  adapting  to  it  his  other 
personal  experiences;  the  employer  must  periodically  obtain, 
on  the  ground  of  other  situations,  the  necessary  money  to  pay 
the  wages.  But  whatever  may  be  the  ways  in  which  the 
respective  situations  are  actualized,  as  long  as  the  agreement 
lasts  and  excepting  only  very  special  circumstances,  the  regular 
performance  of  the  work  is  considered  sufi&cient  and  necessary 
condition  of  the  regular  payment  of  wages,  and  the  regular 
payment  of  wages  a  sufficient  and  necessary  condition  of 
regular  work. 

A  permanent  connection  of  this  kind  evidently  implies  a 
practical  principle  superior  to  the  schemes  themselves,  not 
merely  postulating  that  either  of  the  schemes  be  continued  in 
general,  but  absolutely  demanding  that,  whatever  may  be  the 
concrete  empirical  circumstances,  the  continuation  of  a 
certain  scheme  (or  group  of  schemes)  ^,  be  in  the  future 
accompanied  by  a  continuation  of  a  scheme  (or  group  of 
schemes),  B,  and  the  continuation  of  B  be  accompanied  by 
that  of  A .  The  significance  of  this  demand  may  be  in  special 
cases  qualified  by  various  limitations  and  then  the  principle 
loses  its  indefinite  bearing  on  all  future  experience,  but  even 
then  the  limits  are  self-imposed  in  advance  and  the  claim 
remains  absolute  within  those  limits.  In  view  of  this  absolute 
claim  on  certain  future  situations,  we  call  such  a  principle  a 
practical  dogma. 


PRACTICAL  ORGANIZATION  OF  REALITY  215 

In  introducing  this  term,  just  as  in  using  the  terms 
"scheme"  and  "rule,"  we  must  avoid  the  intellectualistic 
suggestions  which  tradition  seems  to  authorize.  By  dogma 
we  do  not  mean  a  theoretically  formulated  principle,  a  concept, 
or  a  judgment,  but  a  practical  presupposition,  often  subcon- 
scious, a  permanent  attitude  taken  toward  experiences  and 
activities.  It  might  seem  at  first  glance  wiser  not  to  use  such 
terms,  which  bring  with  them  undesirable  suggestions,  but 
the  disadvantage  of  introducing  entirely  new  terms  would  be 
still  greater;  and  we  are  justified  in  giving  the  old  terms  a 
slightly  new  significance  by  the  fact  that  the  significance 
which  they  were  given  in  traditional  definitions  was  not  ade- 
quate with  reference  to  the  very  object-matter  on  which 
they  were  made  to  bear.  Thus,  the  rule  has  been  taken  to 
mean  an  abstract  formula  existing  of  itself  and  giving  by  its 
content  certain  indications  to  behavior  by  which  the  latter  is 
influenced  positively  or  negatively,  that  is,  either  consciously 
tries  or  consciously  does  not  try  to  comply.  But  there  is 
nothing  which  corresponds  to  this  definition.  That  which 
exists  of  itself  when  the  formula  is  produced  is  not  a  practical 
rule  influencing,  regulating  behavior,  but  a  set  of  ideas  which 
can  influence  other  ideas  only  when  theoretically  connected 
with  them.  The  set  of  ideas  becomes  a  rule  of  behavior  only 
while  and  in  so  far  as  there  actually  is  a  behavior  complying 
with  it;  it  has  no  reality  as  regulating  behavior  except  by 
and  in  this  behavior  itself.  Similarly,  by  dogma,  as  tradi- 
tionally understood,  is  meant  the  content  of  a  religious  or 
social  belief,  purely  intellectual  and  devoid  of  any  direct 
bearing  on  practice,  from  which  only  secondarily  by  a  special 
ethical  reasoning  practical  rules  can  be  drawn.  Now,  there 
is  no  dogma  in  this  sense;  every  belief  is  essentially  practical, 
is  the  acceptance  in  conduct  of  a  principle  regulating  a  priori 
future  practical  experiences,  mystical,  social,  aesthetic,  etc., 
and  its  reality  consists  entirely  in  this  active  influence  exer- 
cised on  future  activities.  The  abstract  intellectual  formula- 
tion of  a  dogma  is  something  entirely  different  from  the  dogma 


2l6  CULTURAL  REALITY 

as  matter  of  belief ;  it  is  a  set  of  theoretic  ideas  belonging  not 
to  religion  or  social  life,  but  to  philosophy  or  science.  We  are 
thus  entirely  justified  in  assuming  the  existence  of  a  dogma 
whenever  it  manifests  itself  in  its  active  influence,  whether  it 
has  been  theoretically  formulated  or  not.  This  permits  us 
to  extend  the  use  of  this  term  to  the  total  field  of  practical 
life  and  to  call  dogma  every  implicitly  or  explicitly  accepted 
principle  which  unconditionally  determines  future  activities 
in  view  of  the  maintenance  of  a  certain  complicated  practical 
organization  of  reality,  making  it  independent  of  any  concrete 
empirical  conditions  by  the  very  fact  that  it  makes  it  rely 
entirely  on  itself  in  determining  the  actualization  of  its 
components  exclusively  with  regard  to  each  other. 

The  demand  for  a  certain  organization  of  reality  put  by 
the  scheme  alone  is  hypothetical:  if  and  whenever  the  sche- 
matic situation  is  about  to  be  actualized,  it  must  be  prepared 
in  advance  in  all  its  essential  elements.  This  implies  a 
postulate  that  the  schematic  situation  will  be  actualized,  but 
an  absolutely  undetermined  and  practically  inefficient  postu- 
late. On  the  contrary,  the  demand  put  on  the  future  by  the 
dogma  is  categorical;  certain  schemes,  dependent  exclusively 
on  each  other,  must  be  continually  actualized.  There  is  no 
outside  reason  for  their  actualization;  the  only  condition  on 
which  the  continuation  of  one  of  them  depends  is  the  con- 
tinuation of  the  other.  The  demand  of  the  practical  dogma  is 
not  justified  by  anything  but  the  dogma  itself. 

Genetically,  the  dogma  has,  of  course,  originated  in  some 
preceding  organization  of  activities;  a  whole  dogmatically 
determined  system  of  schemes  may  be  still  a  part  of  some  other 
wider  system,  conditioned  by  a  more  fundamental  dogma, 
just  as  a  new  historical  object  may  be  only  a  variation  of 
some  pre-existing  historical  object.  But  just  as  the  nature  of 
the  historical  object  as  empirical  object  consists  in  its  own 
content  and  meaning  which  it  has  in  so  far  as  distinct  and 
self-existing  reality,  so  the  nature  of  the  dogmatically  deter- 


PRACTICAL  ORGANIZATION  OF  REALITY  217 

mined  system  of  schemes  consists  in  its  own  specific  organiza- 
tion in  so  far  as  it  is  independent,  self-started  system.  Even 
if  a  system  of  schemes  has  originated  as  a  part  of  some 
wider  system,  it  is  also  a  system  in  itself,  and  we  must  first 
know  it  as  such  before  we  study  its  origin.  On  the  other 
hand,  even  if  it  is  in  some  measure  an  independent  and  self- 
started  system,  it  may  be  also  in  some  measure  a  part  of  a 
wider  system  which  will  then,  in  so  far  as  including  several 
other  systems,  be  much  more  complex  than  these.  Thus,  a 
dogmatically  determined  system  of  schemes  may  have  many 
degrees  of  complexity,  a  feature  which  it  evidently  shares  with 
the  object,  the  situation,  and  the  schematic  system  of  situa- 
tions. What  makes  in  each  case  the  unity  of  the  dogmatic 
system  is  that  there  is  always  one  dominant  scheme,  whose 
continued  actuahzation  is  required  to  constitute  a  continually 
returning  aim  in  view  of  which  the  other  schemes  are  required 
to  co-operate.  This  dominant  scheme  determines  the  ideal 
conditions  under  which  the  dogma  demands  that  the  other 
schemes  be  actualized,  whereas  the  other  schemes  create  the 
real  conditions  under  which  the  dogma  demands  that  the 
dominant  scheme  be  actuaHzed. 

The  primary,  the  oldest  example  of  a  practical  dogma  is 
the  principle  of  hedonistic  selection  determining  the  organiza- 
tion of  objects  as  personal  experiences  of  a  conscious  living 
being.  This  organization  is  dogmatically  imposed  upon 
individual  life;  that  is,  even  if  the  search  for  pleasure  and  the 
avoidance  of  pain  should  have  a  further  and  original  justifica- 
tion in  the  conservation  of  the  race,  all  consciousness  of  this 
justification  is  absent  in  personal  experience  unless  secondarily 
developed  by  scientific  theories,  and  hedonistic  selection 
appears  empirically  as  having  its  ultimate  reason  in  itself. 
This  does  not  mean  that  all  organization  of  objects  in  indi- 
vidual experience  is  in  any  sense  reducible  to  it,  since  all 
the  innumerable  existing  schemes  and  systems  of  schemes, 
most  of  which  are  evidently  quite  independent  of  hedonistic 


2l8  CULTURAL  REALITY 

selection,  are  equally  actualized  in  individual  experience.  It 
means  simply  that  the  hedonistic  organization  is  one  of  the 
dogmatic  organizations  of  individual  experience,  the  one  in 
which  the  objects  are  treated  exclusively  as  belonging  to  the 
individual's  personality  without  regard  to  the  impersonal 
systems  to  which  they  also  empirically  belong  and  which  are 
also  constructed  by  the  individual.  The  hedonistic  organiza- 
tion consists  in  an  interdependence  between  the  dominant 
hedonistic  scheme  tending  to  construct  situations  on  the 
ground  of  which  pleasure  can  be  obtained  or  pain  avoided,  and 
all  the  ''instincts,"  inborn  or  acquired,  each  of  which  tends  to 
construct  specific  situations  on  the  ground  of  which  special 
ends  are  reached.  In  this  interdependence,  just  as  in  that 
which  exists  between  the  aim  and  the  situation,  all  instincts 
are  made  to  co-operate  for  the  continued  realization  of  the 
hedonistic  scheme,  while  on  the  other  hand,  the  nature  of  the 
hedonistic  situations  which  are  realized  depends  on  the  nature 
of  the  instinctive  situations  which  constitute  the  real  condi- 
tions of  pleasure.  Life  in  its  biological  and  yet  conscious 
significance  is  for  each  individual  precisely  the  continual 
actualization  of  the  hedonistic  scheme  as  aim  and  ideal  con- 
dition of  all  the  instinctive  schemes,  and  the  actualization  of 
all  the  instinctive  schemes,  more  or  less  reciprocally  limited 
and  interdependent,  as  a  material  and  real  condition  of  the 
hedonistic  scheme.  The  organization  is,  of  course,  neither 
absolutely  closed  nor  absolutely  rational;  but  no  empirical 
organization  ever  is. 

Other  examples  are  found  in  technically  specialized  indus- 
trial activities.  When  instead  of  one  scheme  for  the  produc- 
tion of  a  certain  kind  of  values  which  are  made  at  once  ready 
for  consumption,  as  in  handiwork  and  in  many  non-specialized 
industries,  several  schemes  are  substituted  each  of  which 
organizes  only  a  special  side  of  this  production  so  that  the 
value  is  made  ready  for  consumption  only  by  the  co-operation 
of  all  these  schemes,  the  whole  system  of  schemes  is  determined 


PRACTICAL  ORGANIZATION  OF  REALITY  219 

in  advance  and  unconditionally.  Each  of  these  special  lines 
of  industry  can  and  should  continue  to  produce  as  long  as, 
and  only  as  long  as,  the  other  special  Hnes  produce.  All  other 
special  schemes  of  this  system  are  ideally  conditioned  by  one 
dominant  special  scheme — the  one  which  makes  the  values 
definitively  ready  for  consumption  by  synthetizing  the  partial 
results  of  other  schemes — and  this  scheme  in  turn  is  really 
conditioned  by  all  the  others.  Specialization  requires  thus 
continuous  synthetic  co-operation,  which  for  each  branch  of 
industry  is  brought  into  effect  by  the  fact  that  the  managers 
of  the  more  special  and  therefore  interdependent  branches 
explicitly  or  implicitly  accept,  in  theory  and  in  practice  or 
only  in  practice,  the  principle  of  the  necessary  connection  to 
be  maintained  between  these  lines  in  the  future,  independently 
of  outside  interferences.  Because  in  this  way  every  special 
line  of  production  depends  for  its  continuation  only  on  the 
continuation  of  the  other  lines,  the  continuation  of  the  total 
production  is  unconditional,  the  existence  of  the  whole  system 
in  the  future  is,  from  the  standpoint  and  within  the  limits  of 
this  system  itself,  dogmatically  imposed,  not  made  dependent 
on  any  conditions  which  may  appear  in  concrete  historical 
development  of  the  empirical  reality.  Of  course,  the  isola- 
tion of  this  system  from  the  historical  world  is  only  a  tendency 
which  may  fail  in  its  realization  and  the  system  may  be 
prevented  from  continuing  by  the  lack  of  the  necessary  objects 
or  by  the  non-performance  of  the  necessary  activities;  but 
the  same  is  true  of  the  isolation  of  any  rational  organization 
from  the  concrete  chaos  of  empirical  reality. 

The  nature  of  the  practical  dogma  appears  with  great 
clearness  in  the  poUtical  field.  A  state  is  really  a  wide  system 
of  schemes  in  action,  whose  continual  actualization  is  uncon- 
ditionally demanded  by  the  dogma  constitution,  whether 
abstractly  formulated  and  codified  or  existing  only  as  actively 
applied  in  custom.  Within  this  wide  system  we  find  a  large 
number  of  more  limited  and  partly  independent  systems,  some 


220  CULTURAL  REALITY 

territorially,  others  functionally,  specialized.  None  of  the 
political  dogmas  determining  these  particular  systems,  nor 
even  the  constitution,  are  absolutely  permanent,  as  we  know; 
but  as  long  as  they  last,  their  unconditional  acceptance  is  not 
only  demanded  but  practically  enforced,  that  is,  there  are 
special  schemes  included  in  the  state  organization  whose  task 
consists  in  continually  destroying  such  empirical  hindrances 
to  the  permanence  of  the  system  as  are  most  easily  foreseen 
and  schematized  (disobedience  to  law,  rebellion,  treason,  etc.). 
And  we  can  follow  here  very  well  the  way  in  which  a  dogmatic 
system  imposes  upon  activity  the  realization  of  any  particular 
scheme  which  it  includes.  For  example,  take  a  rule  which 
orders  every  male  citizen  of  a  certain  age  to  join  the  army  when 
called  by  the  government.  This  rule  presupposes  an  indefi- 
nite repetition  of  a  certain  situation — the  determined  age 
reached,  the  call  of  the  government  received,  the  physical 
means  of  joining  the  recruiting  station  at  the  individual's 
disposal,  etc.  Those  few  social  values,  with  the  meaning  given 
to  them  by  social  tradition,  define  the  problem  in  an  identical 
way  for  every  individual  and  of  every  individual  the  same 
solution  is  expected.  But  the  social  values  supposed  to 
constitute  this  situation  are  concrete  empirical  objects  en- 
tering into  many  other  connections,  which  would  prevent 
the  situation  demanded  from  ever  being  reconstructed  if  its 
reconstruction  were  not  imposed  as  aim  upon  individual 
activities  quite  independently  of  the  concrete  conditions  in 
which  the  individual  finds  himself  when  these  values  are  given 
to  him.  The  call  to  join  the  army  at  a  given  time  comes  into 
connection  with  a  multitude  of  other  values— home,  family, 
career,  present  pleasures,  etc.,  on  the  one  hand,  expected  hard- 
ships, possible  death  in  battle,  etc.,  on  the  other.  The  actual 
situation  spontaneously  constructed  by  each  individual  under 
these  circumstances  would  be  entirely  different  from  the  one 
expected  and  the  behavior  solving  these  particular  situations 
would  be  in  most  cases  just  the  opposite  from  the  one  pre- 


PRACTICAL  ORGANIZATION  OF  REALITY  221 

scribed  by  the  rule.  But  behind  this  particular  rule,  behind 
this  one  political  scheme,  there  is  a  wide  complexity  of  other 
schemes  which  act  as  social  and  legal  sanctions  of  the  rule, 
such  as  legal  punishment,  social  contempt,  on  the  one  hand, 
and  social  approval,  prospects  of  fame,  moral  duty,  patriotism, 
etc.,  on  the  other.  From  among  the  many  and  various  situa- 
tions which  these  terms  designate  the  individual  himself,  or, 
in  the  last  extremity,  the  executive  authority,  is  supposed  in 
each  case  to  select  and  realize  a  combination  which  will  be 
sufficient  to  construct  the  real  conditions  necessary  and  suffi- 
cient for  the  realization  of  the  model  situation  as  demanded  by 
the  rule.  The  organizing  activity  preparing  thus  under  the 
pressure  of  the  whole  political  system  everything  necessary 
for  any  model  situation  prescribed  by  a  political  scheme 
constitutes  the  basis  of  all  political  obedience. 

The  system  of  schemes  founded  on  a  practical  dogma  is, 
as  we  see,  first  of  all  a  system  of  activities  rather  than  of 
objects,  but  of  activities  organized  essentially  in  view  of  real, 
not  of  ideal,  purposes,  and  therefore  it  results,  just  as  the 
concrete  action  which  organizes  the  situation  or  as  a  con- 
crete schematizing  activity  which  actuahzes  the  scheme,  in  a 
systematization  of  objects.  This  systematization  bears,  first 
of  all,  upon  the  totality  of  the  schematic  situations  which  the 
dogma  implies.  The  continual  reconstruction  of  these  sit- 
uations in  their  reciprocal  dependence  is  unconditionally 
demanded  by  the  dogma,  and  even  if  for  an  individual  who 
participates  in  the  reconstruction  only  one  of  these  situations 
can  actually  become  an  aim  at  once,  from  the  standpoint  of 
the  dogma  all  these  situations  appear  as  one  general,  perma- 
nent, and  complex  aim  imposed  upon  concrete  activity.  The 
unity  of  these  situations  appears  thus  as  no  longer  dependent 
on  their  actual  dynamic  organization,  as  it  is  in  the  concrete 
system  of  auxiliary  situations  actually  constructed  for  the 
realization  of  a  model  situation,  but  as  given  once  and  forever 
in  its  perfect  rationality.     Of  course,  in  order  to  be  empirically 


222  CULTURAL  REALITY 

ascertainable,  this  unity  must  be  actually  reproducible  by 
individual  active  thought  in  the  same  indirect  way  as  a 
system  of  situations  is.  But  it  does  not  need  to  be  reproduced 
by  all  the  individuals  who  take  part  in  its  realization,  nor  to  be 
reproduced  by  any  individual  in  its  totality.  It  is  sufficient 
and  necessary  that  some  individuals,  as,  for  instance,  a  group 
of  industrial  managers  or  political  rulers,  can  each  reproduce 
and  actively  maintain  the  rational  organization  of  a  part  of  the 
system,  provided  only  such  partial  individual  reproductions 
supplement  one  another  so  as  to  cover  the  total  system.  In 
the  contrary  case,  if  the  system  is  not  consciously  and  actively 
maintained  in  its  rationality  either  by  one  individual  or  by 
several  co-operating  individuals,  this  rational  organization 
soon  loses  its  realness  and  the  empirically  given  system 
degenerates  first  into  a  complex  of  schemes,  then  even  into 
a  mere  complex  of  situations  and  single  objects  like  those 
survivals  of  old  institutions  which  exist  in  every  society  beside 
the  vital  and  systematic  actual  organization.  But  in  so  far 
as  the  system  is  actively  maintained  and  the  schemes  kept  in 
their  reciprocal  dependence,  the  schematic  situations  appear 
as  no  longer  actually  interconnected,  but  objectively  and 
permanently  interrelated,  for  each  of  them  is  rationally  neces- 
sary for  all  the  others.  The  individual  may  exclude  the 
dogmatic  system  from  his  actual  sphere  of  reality  or  even 
impose  a  different  system  on  his  group,  but  he  can  neither 
change  nor  deny  its  rational  organization  in  so  far  as  the  latter 
has  been  once  produced.  He  can,  indeed,  make  it  more 
perfect  if  it  is  not  perfect  yet,  but  he  cannot  destroy  its 
perfection  when  attained,  though  he  may  contribute  to  the 
destruction  of  the  realness  of  the  system  as  concrete  complex  of 
situations,  or  contribute  to  the  substitution  in  historical  reaUty 
of  an  irrational  chaos  for  this  rational  order.  For  example, 
in  industrial  specialization  and  co-operation  the  technical 
situations  constructed  in  different  interdependent  lines  of 
production  appear  as  objectively  and  permanently  supple- 


PRACTICAL  ORGANIZATION  OF  REALITY  223 

meriting  one  another  and  constitute,  with  all  the  materials 
and  instruments  which  they  include,  one  common  domain  of 
technical  reality,  one  definite  isolated  and  rational  section  of 
the  empirical  world,  which  cannot  be  disturbed  in  any  of  its 
parts  without  being  disturbed  in  its  whole  systematic  unity. 
We  may  do  the  latter  and  destroy  the  realness  of  this  whole 
branch  of  industry,  but  we  cannot  prevent  its  systematic 
organization  from  existing  forever  once  it  has  been  created,  nor 
the  situations,  such  as  defined  by  the  schemes,  from^  being 
forever  necessarily  related  with  one  another  by  the  demand  of 
industrial  co-operation. 

Such  a  rational  stabilization  of  the  system  of  schematic 
situations  has  a  further  effect  upon  the  rationality  of  each 
situation  in  particular.  We  have  seen  that  a  scheme,  by 
imposing  the  reconstruction  of  a  definite  situation  as  an  aim, 
leads  already  to  a  determination  in  advance  of  the  way  by 
which  this  situation  will  be  solved  and  thus  introduces  the 
teleological  systematization  of  means  and  end,  reduces  the 
creative  role  of  each  act  to  the  mere  starting  of  a  known  and 
objectively  determined  process,  and  subjects  the  sequence  of 
these  processes  to  the  principle  of  final  causality.  The  situa- 
tion contains  already  virtually  its  own  solution,  and  activity 
is  supposed  merely  to  actualize  this  virtual  solution  from  case 
to  case.  Now,  when  it  is  unconditionally  demanded  of  a 
system  of  schematic  situations  that  it  be  actualized  indefi- 
nitely, even  this  limited  role  of  spontaneous  activity  is 
ignored,  and  the  development  of  the  situation  loses  its  teleo- 
logical character.  The  schematic  situation  becomes  deter- 
mined not  only  in  the  nature  of  its  construction  and  realization, 
but  in  the  very  fact  of  its  construction  and  realization. 
Therefore  its  realization,  which  from  the  standpoint  of  the 
scheme  was  an  ideally  necessary  outcome  of  its  constitution,  is 
from  the  standpoint  of  the  dogma  a  really  necessary  result  of 
its  existence  at  a  given  time  and  place.  From  the  first  stand- 
point, the  constructed  situation  should  be  realized  in  a  way 


224  CULTURAL  REALITY 

determined  in  advance;  from  the  second,  it  must  be  realized 
in  a  way  determined  in  advance.  The  constructed  situation, 
in  a  word,  is  treated  as  including  within  itself  everything 
necessary  to  have  its  virtual  solution  become  actual,  as  neces- 
sarily bringing  of  itself  a  result  determined  in  advance.  Of 
course,  activity  must  be  always  implicitly  presupposed:  the 
situation  could  not  be  constructed  without  the  schematizing 
activity  which  selects  and  organizes  auxiliary  situations,  and 
the  schematizing  activity  would  not  continue  to  reconstruct 
the  schematic  situation  time  after  time  if  it  were  not  for  the 
active  influence  of  the  practical  dogma.  But  the  situation 
once  there,  the  fact  of  its  solution  is  no  longer  a  matter  of 
choice;  its  existence  having  been  unconditionally  imposed 
upon  activity  and  unconditionally  accepted,  its  solution,  being 
implied  by  its  existence,  follows  also  unconditionally.  The 
whole  series  of  modifications  which  will  lead  to  the  expected 
and  demanded  result  are  thus  one  complex  process  within 
which  activity  has  nothing  more  to  do,  and  which  brings 
nothing  new,  since  not  only  its  nature,  but  its  very  occurrence 
was  implied  in  the  situation.  In  so  far  however  as  several 
objects  are  involved  in  this  process  and  the  change  which 
occurs  in  one  object  is  different  from  that  which  follows  in 
another  object,  the  process  splits  into  a  series,  or  several  series, 
of  different  processes.  Each  of  these  processes,  as  we  know, 
already  is  a  necessary  link  of  the  series  in  the  realization  of  a 
situation  which  is  only  schematically  determined;  but  now, 
in  the  dogmatically  demanded  situation,  its  connection  with 
the  preceding  and  following  process  is  no  longer  teleological, 
since  the  whole  development  of  which  it  is  a  part  is  no  longer, 
treated  as  dependent  upon  activity,  all  activity  having  been 
performed  in  advance.  The  occurrence  of  a  given  process  is 
thus  no  longer  merely  a  teleologically  indispensable  condition 
of  the  occurrence  of  the  following  process,  to  which  an  act 
must  be  added  in  order  to  make  it  a  sufficient  condition:  the 
whole   development  being  presupposed  as   something  that 


PRACTICAL  ORGANIZATION  OF  REALITY  225 

necessarily  is  going  to  happen  and  to  happen  in  a  determined 
way,  the  occurrence  of  a  particular  given  process  is  both 
necessary  and  sufficient  to  have  the  following  process  occur. 
In  a  word,  within  the  limits  of  the  development  implied  by  a 
dogmatically  demanded  situation  each  process  is  the  efficient 
cause  of  the  following  process. 

The  principle  of  causality  is  thus  the  product  of  a  highly 
developed  practical  organization,  far  from  being  the  elemen- 
tary and  fundamental  principle  of  all  organized  experience,  as 
the  eighteenth  century  assumed  and  modern  idealism  still 
continues  to  believe.  History  and  sociology  give  us  proofs 
enough  tha.t  the  original  empirical  attitude  is  to  search  for  the 
explanation  of  each  process  in  an  act,  not  in  another  process; 
and  an  act  can  be  neither  a  cause  nor  an  effect,  if  we  take  these 
terms  in  their  exact  sense,  as  indicating  a  relation  between 
real  happenings.  The  most  primitive  application  of  the  prin- 
ciple of  causality  is,  as  should  be  expected,  found  within 
schematic  situations  organized  by  the  principle  of  hedonistic 
selection,  the  earliest  practical  dogma.  We  begin  to  expect 
definite  effects  from  definite  cause's,  to  rely  upon  the  natural 
sequence  of  processes,  fijst  of  all  within  the  situations  formed 
under  the  control  of  our  instincts,  long  before  we  succeed  in 
organizing  technical  and  particularly  social  situations  which 
will  then  develop  automatically.  Any  causality  which  we  find 
in  "nature,"  in  the  popular,  non-scientific  sense  of  the  term,  is 
always  empirically  a  succession  of  processes  in  some  instinc- 
tively organized  situation  which  we  expect— hope  or  fear — 
to  be  realized  without  the  participation  of  our  activity.  For 
there  is  no  practical  causality  except  within  the  limits  of  one 
situation,  which,  of  course,  may  indefinitely  repeat  itself. 

Not  only  is  there  no  causality  possible  in  the  concrete  em- 
pirical development  of  the  historical  reality,  but  even  in  a  prac- 
tically organized  reality  an  unexpected  disturbance  of  the 
regular  sequence  of  processes  within  a  situation  is  not  originally 
taken  as  the  effect  of  a  cause  but  as  the  result  of  an  act,  unless 


226  CULTURAL  REALITY 

it  can  be  interpreted  as  a  process  constituting  a  part  of  the 
development  of  some  other  dogmatically  demanded  situation. 
This  is  also  the  reason  why  in  practical  life  we  find  neither  the 
principle  of  an  endless  series  of  causality  nor  that  of  the 
essential  homogeneity  of  causally  connected  processes.  Since 
the  development  of  a  situation  has  a  beginning  and  an  end, 
there  must  be  in  it  a  process  which  is  only  a  cause  without 
being  an  effect  and  another  which  is  an  effect  without  being  a 
cause.  Practical  reflection,  unless  influenced  by  scientific 
or  philosophical  theories,  calmly  accepts  this  circumstance, 
easily  admitting  a  beginning  and  an  end  of  the  causal  series. 
The  first  process  which  starts  the  development  of  the  situation 
can,  of  course,  be  only  the  result  of  an  act;  but  the  act  is 
excluded  from  the  situation.  The  last  process,  the  last 
modification  of  an  object  within  the  situation  may  become  the 
starting-point  of  some  other  series  of  practical  modifications, 
but  this  series,  which  must  be  started  by  a  new  activity,  does 
not  belong  either  in  the  situation.  So  the  causal  series  is 
practically  closed. 

On  the  other  hand,  the  most  various  processes  can  be- 
long to  it.  In  an  industrial  situation  which  includes  men  as 
elements,  the  only  way  in  which  the  active,  ideal  factor  can 
be  ignored  and  the  development  treated  as  causal  is  to  sub- 
stitute, while  determining  the  situation  dogmatically,  for 
each  indefinitely  repeatable  act  a  bodily  movement  and  a 
psychological  process,  and  to  introduce  both  of  them  into 
the  causal  series,  the  first  as  the  effect  of  the  second,  which 
is  in  turn  treated  as  the  effect  of  some  preceding  material 
process.  In  the  development  of  a  political  situation  psycho- 
logical processes,  causally  determined  by  material,  economic, 
and  other  processes  as  motives,  and  themselves  causally 
determining  material,  economic,  and  other  processes,  are  the 
most  important  links  of  the  causal  series.  On  a  higher  level 
of  organization,  activity  substitutes  indeed  more  and  more 
homogeneous  causal  series  for  heterogeneous  ones;  it  tries  to 


PRACTICAL  ORGANIZATION  OF  REALITY  227 

reduce,  for  instance,  the  entire  development  of  a  technical 
situation  to  mechanical  processes.  This  evolution  is  brought 
by  uniformizing  the  instruments  used  in  the  situations  de- 
manded by  a  certain  practical  dogma.  Thus,  machines  are 
substituted  for  men  in  industrial  schemes,  physical  coercion 
exercised  through  material  instruments  gives  way  to  psy- 
chological influence  exercised  through  social  personalities  in 
social  schemes,  etc.  This  facilitates  the  isolation  of  the  given 
system  of  schemes  from  unexpected  external  disturbances 
which  may  interfere  with  the  regular  development  of  its 
situations,  but  it  does  not  change  the  rational  character  of  this 
development  itself.  The  series  of  processes  which  go  on  in  a 
factory  appears  as  equally  real  and  causal  with  regard  to  men 
as  to  machines,  if  we  accept  it  as  given  and  abstract  it  from 
the  activity  which  has  organized  it  and  makes  it  run  again  and 
again  in  an  identical  order  by  keeping  away  all  disturbances ; 
it  appears  as  equally  ideal  and  concretely  intentional  if  we 
remove  this  abstraction  and  take  it  as  a  part  of  the  total 
evolution  of  our  experience  and  reflection. 

The  second  effect  of  the  system  of  schemes  upon  reahty 
is  that  this  system  becomes  a  center  of  unification  of  new 
situations.  Every  actualization  of  each  scheme  must  be 
brought  by  an  intentional  organization  of  auxihary  situations, 
and  since  it  is  demanded  of  the  schemes  to  be  actuaHzed  again 
and  again  whatever  may  be  the  concrete  empirical  conditions, 
the  dogmatic  system  imposes  upon  our  activity  an  obligation 
to  prepare  such  concrete  empirical  conditions  for  the  future  as 
will  permit  us  to  organize  case  by  case  the  auxihary  situations 
of  the  demanded  schemes.  This  preparation,  of  course,  can 
be  always  only  approximate  and  gradual.  It  consists  in 
intentionally  trying  to  maintain  for  the  future  such  a  composi- 
tion and  organization  of  the  domain  of  reality  within  which  the 
dogmatic  system  is  developing  as  has  proved  up  to  the  present 
sufficient  and  necessary  for  its  continual  actualization.  This 
is  done  by  avoiding  within  this  sphere  such  activities  as  would 


228  CULTURAL  REALITY 

modify  it  too  much  and  by  trying  to  counterbalance  modifica- 
tions which  nevertheless  occur.  A  conscious  being  who  stays 
in  a  given  natural  and  social  environment  as  long  as  this 
environment  remains  in  some  measure  uniform,  who  gradually 
reaches  a  routine  of  experience  and  activity  so  as  to  ignore  in 
advance,  not  to  notice  and  not  to  use,  any  new  possibilities 
which  the  future  may  bring,  who  actively  opposes  unexpected 
modifications  brought  into  his  routinized  experience  and 
activity  and  who,  when  too  much  disturbed,  may  even,  if 
possible,  change  his  environment  to  a  similar  but  more  ILxed 
one,  offers  a  good  example  of  such  a  stabilization  of  the  future 
on  the  ground  of  the  practical  dogma  of  hedonistic  selection. 
The  permanent  localization  of  an  industry  in  a  certain  terri- 
tory, the  efforts  made  by  its  managers  to  maintain  the  means 
of  communication,  the  prices,  the  labor  conditions,  even  the 
social  and  political  organization  in  a  status  which  has  proved 
propitious  for  their  industry,  the  active  opposition  which 
every  innovation  provokes  as  long  as  the  system  runs  satis- 
factorily— all  this  represents  well  the  effect  which  an  industrial 
dogma  has  upon  the  future.  In  the  political  field  history  gives 
us  enough  examples  of  an  intentional  perpetuation  of  given 
social,  economic,  intellectual  conditions  and  careful  pre- 
vention of  all  active  modifications  which  may,  directly  or 
indirectly,  make  the  continual  actual  preservation  of  the 
existing  state  system  difficult.  The  practical  dogma  is  in 
every  field,  just  as  it  is  known  to  be  in  the  religious  field,  a 
foundation  of  conservatism,  not  merely  because  it  demands 
unconditionally  the  maintenance  of  a  given  system  of  schemes, 
but  because  to  assure  and  facilitate  this  maintenance  it  tends 
to  control  the  future  historical  evolution  of  that  part  of  con- 
crete reality  within  which  the  system  exists,  by  superimposing 
upon  the  concrete  sphere  of  chaotically  evolving  historical 
objects  a  large  body  of  unsystematized  but  interconnected  and 
repeatable  situations. 

We  understand  now  how  it  is  that  our  common-sense 
reality,  while  being  far  from  possessing  that  full  systematic 


PRACTICAL  ORGANIZATION  OF  REALITY  229 

rationality  which  science  tries  to  give  it,  while  always  only 
partially  and  fragmentarily  rationalized  and  divided  into 
numerous  and  never  absolutely  perfect  systems,  appears  to 
us  usually  as  a  world  of  things,  not  a  world  of  historical  objects, 
why  its  relative  stability  strikes  us  more  than  its  continuous 
evolution  so  that  evolution  seems  superimposed  upon  stability 
instead  of  vice  versa,  and  why  at  most  moments  of  our 
conscious  life  we  seem  to  find  around  us  objectively  and 
statically  unified  spheres  of  reality  rather  than  actively  and 
dynamically  connected  spheres  of  experience  and  reflection. 
The  point  is  that  most  of  our  conscious  life  is  spent  in  sche- 
matically constructing  or  in  realizing  practical  situations 
imposed  by  some  dogmas ;  that  in  our  common-sense  reflection 
we  usually  find  ourselves  in  the  midst  of  some  practical 
activity  and  thus  our  present  experience  mostly  converges 
toward  some  definite  situation;  that  the  section  of  our  past 
experience  which  we  now  remember  appears  in  memory  as 
centralized  around  some  scheme ;  that  the  section  of  our  future 
experience  which  we  now  expect  appears  in  this  expectation  as 
stabilized  and  unified  by  a  certain  dogma.  Common-sense 
reflection,  essentially  practical  in  its  character,  never  gets 
beyond  the  superficial  standpoint  of  one  practical  system  or 
another,  and  therefore  cannot  reach  by  itself,  cannot  even 
understand  if  shown,  the  concrete  empirical  reality  upon 
which  all  the  practical  systems  are  built  as  a  complex  super- 
structure, objective  and  real  indeed,  but  maintained  above  the 
rushing  stream  of  the  historical  world  only  by  a  continuous 
positive  effort  of  active  thought.  This  maintenance  is,  indeed, 
not  a  mere  preservation  but  a  ceaseless  extension  of  the  main- 
tained systems  and  creation  of  new  ones,  so  that  practical 
organization  continuously  penetrates  deeper  and  deeper  into 
the  concrete  historical  becoming  and  more  and  more  of  the 
pre-existing  chaotic  reality  becomes  practically  rationalized. 
But  as  the  unorganized  reality  also  continues  to  grow,  prac- 
tically constructive  activity  can  never  master  the  total  con- 
crete wealth  of  the  historical  chaos. 


CHAPTER  V 
THE  THEORETIC  ORDERS  OF  REALITY 

THE  GENERAL  FEATURES  OF  THEORETIC  RATIONALIZATION 

The  imperfect  and  multifonn  organization  of  reality 
super-constructed  by  practical  activity  upon  the  world  of 
concrete  historical  objects  serves  in  turn  as  a  foundation 
for  a  new  superstructure,  the  rational  order  which  knowl- 
edge imposes  upon  its  object-matter. 

We  cannot,  of  course,  give  here  a  complete  theory  of  knowl- 
edge which  presupposes  a  general  theory  of  activity  and 
constitutes  the  most  arduous  task  of  philosophy.  We  shall 
limit  ourselves  to  the  minimum  of  indications  necessary 
to  understand  the  connection  between  knowledge  and  reality 
in  so  far  as  it  affects  the  latter. 

The  fundamental  points  which  must  be  kept  in  mind  are 
that,  on  the  one  hand,  knowledge  constitutes  itself  a  part 
of  cultural  reality,  the  domain  of  ideas,  each  of  which  has 
a  content  drawn  from  some  other  reality  and  a  meaning 
due  to  its  connection  with  other  ideas;  and  that,  on  the 
other  hand,  each  idea  is  objectified  and  stabilized  thought, 
which  at  any  moment  can  be  actualized  again  as  thought,  as 
an  activity  of  which  reality  is  the  object-matter.  As  a  reality, 
the  domain  of  ideas  has  a  rational  organization  of  its  own, 
whose  character  is  formally  practical,  that  is,  which  mani- 
fests itself  in  situations,  schemes,  and  dogmas,  just  as  the 
rational  organization  of  technical  or  political  reality;  and 
there  is  a  special  activity,  which  might  be  called  theoretically 
practical,  if  such  a  term  did  not  seem  stranger  still  than  that 
of  ideal  reality,  which  we  have  used  to  distinguish  the  domain 
of  ideas  from  all  other  reality.  The  task  of  this  activity  is 
to  create  new  ideas,  both  on  the  ground  of  real  data  and  on 

230 


THEORETIC  ORDERS  OF  REALITY  231 

the  ground  of  pre-existing  ideas.  The  instruments  of  this 
creation,  with  the  help  of  which  ideas  become  fixed  and  in- 
corporated into  the  pre-existing  ideal  reahty,  are  symbols, 
and  the  complexes  of  pre-existing  ideas  organized  for  the 
creation  of  new  ideas  are  systems  of  knowledge.  A  system 
of  knowledge,  once  ready,  may  be  time  after  time  actualized 
as  a  system  of  active  thoughts  bearing  upon  reality,  and  thus 
produce  a  more  or  less  wide  and  complicated  systematization 
of  reality,  which,  since  it  does  not  tend  to  create  any  new 
objects  within  the  reality  upon  which  the  actualized  system 
of  knowledge  bears  and  includes  no  instruments,  can  be  called 
a  theoretic  systematization  in  the  original  sense  of  the  term, 
that  is,  a  systematization  by  observation. 

Now,  this  systematic  theoretic  order  imposed  by  knowl- 
edge upon  reality  is  not  a  copy,  a  reproduction  of  the 
systematic  organization  which  knowledge  finds  ready  and 
constructed  by  practical  activity.  A  system  of  objects  may 
be  practically  reproduced  in  the  sense  of  being  constructed 
again,  as  a  schematic  situation  is,  time  after  time;  we  know 
reproduction  in  this  sense  from  the  preceding  sections  and 
we  hardly  need  to  mention  that  the  practically,  even  if 
only  mentally,  reproduced  system  is  always  still  a  practical 
system — technical,  political,  etc. — and  not  knowledge  of  a 
system.  Or  a  system  of  objects  may  be  reproduced  in  con- 
crete experience  without  being  practically  followed  in  its 
organization,  as  a  more  or  less  complex  datum;  but  such  a 
"representation"  of  a  system  is  not  a  knowledge  of  this 
system,  but  is  this  system  itself  becoming  an  object,  an 
element  of  experience,  with  a  given  content  and  a  meaning 
which  it  acquires  in  actuality.  Reproduction  in  this  sense, 
as  a  mere  introduction  of  the  system  as  a  datum  into  the 
present  sphere  of  experience  and  reflection,  is  not  knowledge, 
any  more  than  the  reappearance  of  any  object  "in  memory" 
is;  we  may  call  it  acquaintance  with  the  system,  but  acquaint- 
ance is  only  making  objects  accessible  to  individual  theoretic 


232  CULTURAL  REALITY 

activity,  collecting  materials  out  of  which  knowledge  still 
has  to  be  built.  And  when  knowledge  is  built,  both  the  way 
in  which  its  elements  or  ideas  are  determined  and  the  way 
in  which  they  are  systematized  are  completely  different  from 
the  pre-existing  determination  and  systematization  of  the 
objects  upon  which  these  ideas  are  based. 

The  content  of  the  idea  is,  indeed,  drawn  from  reality, 
since  nothing  but  reality  can  be  given;  and  yet  the  idea  is 
not  the  reality  which  is  its  object-matter,  but  is  objectified 
thought  about  this  reality.  This  seeming  contradiction, 
the  necessity  and  the  apparent  impossibility  of  distinguishing 
the  idea  from  its  object-matter,  has  been  one  of  the  main 
stumbHng-stones  of  the  philosophy  of  knowledge,  and  there 
lies  the  source  of  that  strange  conception  of  ideas  being 
subjectively  psychological  copies  of  objects,  similar  in  con- 
tent but  different  in  being  from  their  originals.  This  con- 
ception was  the  more  readily  accepted  since  it  fell  in  with 
the  practical  distinction  between  real  and  unreal  elements 
of  practical  activity  of  which  we  have  spoken  in  the 
preceding  chapter,  and  since  moreover  (a  point  which  we 
shall  discuss  later)  theoretic  ideas  when  used  for  practical 
purposes  are  mostly  actualized  during  the  first  period  of 
activity  when  the  aim  is  being  constructed  but  waits  to  be 
realized,  and  when  therefore  activity  is  taken  to  be  only 
mental  from  the  standpoint  of  the  second,  instrumental, 
period.  When,  however,  the  study  of  concrete  historical 
reality  has  forced  us  to  reject  the  concept  of  representations 
as  subjective  copies  of  objects,  we  must  search  for  a  different 
and  less  arbitrary  distinction  between  ideas  and  the  reality 
from  which  they  are  drawn. 

The  whole  difficulty  comes  from  the  prepossession  that 
knowledge  reproduces  reality  in  its  pre-existing  determination 
and  systematization,  whereas  the  very  difference  between 
knowledge  and  its  object-matter,  and  thus  the  very  existence 
of  knowledge  as  something  distinct  from  its  object-matter, 


THEORETIC  ORDERS  OF  REALITY  233 

are  empirically  manifested  precisely  in  the  specific  and  original 
determination  and  systematization  which  it  gives  to  its 
object-matter.  The  act  of  thought  which  is  the  ideal  ground 
of  an  idea  cannot  be  given  as  object-matter,  but  its  real 
results  can  be,  and  it  is  by  its  results  as  differing  from  the 
results  of  other  acts  that  we  recognize  it  and  define  it.  In 
order  to  objectivate  it  as  an  idea,  to  oppose  the  idea  as  a 
specific  object  to  the  original  object-matter  of  the  act  of 
thought,  we  must  isolate  the  result  of  this  act  from  the  total 
concrete  reality,  stabilize  it,  raise  it  above  the  historical  exten- 
sion and  duration  of  the  sphere  of  experience  to  which  it  be- 
longs. This  is  called  theoretic  idealization  and  requires  the  use 
of  the  symbol.  The  symbol  is  a  real  pre-existing  object  with 
which  the  given  result  of  a  theoretic  act  of  thought  becomes 
connected  and,  in  so  far  as  taken  in  this  connection  alone, 
can  be  treated  as  an  object  independent  of  its  empirical 
context,  and  not  as  a  mere  modification  of  other  objects. 
But  that  empirical  result  of  the  theoretic  act,  that  real  datum 
which  the  symbol  helps  to  idealize,  must  be  in  some  way 
different  from  the  results  of  practical  acts  which  construct 
practical  systems  of  objects;  otherwise  there  would  be  no 
difference  between  theory  and  practice.  A  symbolic  con- 
nection is  not  limited  to  the  field  of  knowledge;  in  fact, 
every  concrete  object  might  be  called  a  symbol  in  that  it 
has  a  meaning  which  suggests  acts  that  lead  to  other  empirical 
objects.  A  symbol  in  the  special  and  definite  sense  of  the 
term  is  characterized  by  the  fact  that  it  expresses  an  idea;  but 
it  can  express  an  idea  also  only  by  suggesting  acts  which  lead 
to  some  object-matter,  and  therefore  the  specific  empirical 
difference  which  characterizes  the  symbol  as  a  theoretic  in- 
strument must  come  directly  from  that  object-matter  which 
it  symbolizes. 

In  fact,  the  formation  of  an  idea  implies  as  the  first  and 
indispensable  condition  the  establishment  of  a  connection 
between  the  given  property,  relation,  thing,  process,  or  even 


234  CULTURAL  REALITY 

a  whole  system,  if  the  latter  in  its  entirety  becomes  the  object- 
matter  of  knowledge,  and  other  properties,  relations,  things, 
processes,  systems,  outside  of  the  organization  of  reality  of 
which  the  given  object-matter  is  a  part.  This  connection 
consists  in  the  production,  or  reproduction,  of  a  uniformity, 
that  is,  a  community  of  determination  between  the  objects 
which  are  being  connected,  quite  independently  of  any 
differences  which  they  may  possess  in  the  different  real  sys- 
tems to  which  they  respectively  belong.  Using  traditional 
terms,  we  shall  say  that  the  first  condition,  the  starting-point 
of  the  formation  of  an  idea  is  abstraction  and  generalization. 
It  is  abstraction,  in  so  far  as  the  given  object  of  theoretic 
thought,  in  order  to  be  connected  with  other  objects  on 
the  ground  of  uniformity,  has  to  become  isolated  from  the 
whole  real  systematic  organization  to  which  it  belongs;  it 
is  generalization,  in  so  far  as  it  can  be  isolated  from  the  real 
practical  system  of  which  it  is  objectively  a  part  only  by 
being  connected  with  other  objects  outside  of  this  system 
on  the  ground  of  some  common  determination,  by  being 
taken  as  one  particular  empirical  manifestation  of  a  super- 
systematic  uniformity. 

This  uniformity  of  properties,  relations,  processes,  things, 
systems,  outside  of  their  respective  organizations,  even  in 
so  far  as  it  exists  previous  to  theoretic  thought,  is  clearly 
not  a  real  relation  or  even  a  pre-existing  practical  connection 
between  them,  but  the  result  of  the  fact  that  they  have  been 
determined  in  a  similar  way  each  in  its  particular  organization; 
that  a  certain  similar  kind  of  connection  has  been  at  various 
times  and  in  various  places  estabhshed  between  each  of  these 
objects  which  we  generalize  and  some  other  objects  which 
may  be  quite  different  from  case  to  case.  The  source  of 
this  uniformity  of  objects  can  therefore  be  only  an  ideal 
uniformity  of  the  acts  which  have  determined  them,  and  the 
theoretic  thought  which  connects  objects  on  the  ground 
of  their  uniformity  follows  in  fact  the  traces  that  certain 


THEORETIC  ORDERS  OF  REALITY  235 

ideal  characteristics  of  active  thought  have  left  upon  the  reahty 
which  this  active  thought  has  created  in  the  past.  But  the 
full  demonstration  of  this  proposition  belongs  with  the  theory 
of  active  thought. 

What  is  evident  here  is  that  the  isolation  and  subordination 
of  the  particular  to  the  general  by  which,  using  particular 
real  data  as  material,  we  construct  the  content  of  an  idea 
does  not  correspond  to  any  pre-existing  real  order.  In 
practical  reahty,  as  we  have  seen,  all  direct  rational  deter- 
mination of  objects  is  within  a  situation,  and  if  objects  present 
similar  characteristics,  it  is  as  inseparable  elements  of  situa- 
tions, not  as  variations  of  common  real  essences.  An  actually 
given  object  appearing  in  individual  experience  may  be  indeed 
a  particular  variation  of  the  total  concrete  historical  object; 
but  a  particular  property,  relation,  process,  thing,  is  not 
really  a  variation  of  more  general  property,  relation,  process, 
or  thing;  and  if  a  system  may  be  considered  as  a  variation 
of  some  other  system,  it  is  only  if  taken  with  regard  to  its 
form,  to  the  nature  of  its  organization  as  determined  by  the 
same  kind  of  active  thought  and  not  with  regard  to  the  real 
matter  it  contains. 

The  content  of  an  idea  is  thus  constructed  as  a  unity 
of  all  these  particular  determinations  of  reahty  which  become 
connected  by  theoretic  thought  on  the  ground  of  their  uni- 
formity, as  variations  of  one  more  general  determination. 
We  know,  of  course,  that  theoretic  thought  seldom,  if  ever, 
actually  embraces  all  the  particular  determinations  which 
may  be  subordinated  to  the  same  general  determination, 
all  the  "particulars"  of  a  *' universal";  but  in  so  far  as  the 
idea  can  be  actualized  again  and  again,  the  system  of  deter- 
minations which  it  creates  may  be  said  to  contain  virtually 
all  the  particular  determinations  of  this  common  form  which 
will  ever  be  found  in  experience.  Between  the  content 
of  several  ideas  again  some  more  general  uniformity  may  be 
found  and  these  ideas  subordinated  to  one  common  idea 


236  CULTURAL  REALITY 

whose  content  is  directly  constituted  as  a  unity  of  their 
contents  and  indirectly  as  a  unity  of  all  these  determinations 
of  reality  which  they  have  unified. 

The  content  of  the  idea  roots  thus  in  reality  by  the  nature 
of  its  materials,  but  rises  above  and  outside  of  reality  by 
the  nature  of  the  unification  of  these  materials,  to  which  no 
real  systematic  unity  of  objects  corresponds,  only  an  ideal 
uniformity  of  the  acts  that  have  determined  them  in  the  past, 
which  is  the  genetic  source  of  the  common  form  of  these 
objects,  though  the  latter  belong  to  different  real  systems. 
And  the  more  general  an  idea,  the  more  evident  is  the  lack 
of  any  pre-existing  real  connection  between  the  determinations 
which  are  unified  in  it,  the  more  indubitable  the  ideal  ground 
of  this  unification;  if  anyone  should  doubt  whether  empirical 
"rednesses"  or  empirical  "tables"  are  not  interconnected 
really,  there  can  be  hardly  any  doubt,  except  on  the  ground 
of  mediaeval  realism,  that  only  a  common  form,  no  real 
bond,  unifies  all  the  empirical  "colors"  or  empirical  "pieces 
of  furniture,"  when  theoretic  thought  begins  to  connect 
them  as  members  of  a  class. 

But  it  is  not  enough  to  give  to  the  idea  a  content;  it 
must  acquire  a  meaning  for  science,  become  a  full  element 
of  the  ideal  reality  by  being  connected  with  other  pre-existing 
ideas.  Only  by  this  connection,  as  part  of  a  system  of  ideas, 
its  content  becomes  definitively  stabilized  and  determined 
as  independent — on  its  ideal,  if  not  on  its  real  side — of  the 
concrete  evolution  of  reality  in  extension  and  duration,  so 
that  the  real  data  on  which  it  is  based  may  evolve  and  even 
completely  disappear  from  actual  experience,  while  the  idea 
will  persist  together  with  the  system  of  knowledge  into  which 
it  has  been  incorporated.  In  so  far  as  ideas  must  be  expressed 
in  symbols,  since  without  a  symbol  a  thought  cannot  be 
objectivated  as  an  idea,  symbols  are  also  indispensable 
instruments  of  the  systematization  of  ideas,  because  actual 
connections  of   ideas   can   become   stable   relations   only   if 


THEORETIC  ORDERS  OF  REALITY  237 

expressed  in  relations  of  symbols;  at  the  same  time  the  mean- 
ing of  the  symbol  itself,  as  of  an  instrument,  can  be  stabilized 
completely  only  by  this  use  in  relation  with  other  instruments- 
symbols  to  express  a  system  of  ideas. 

The  systematic  connection  by  which  ideas  acquire  their 
scientific  meaning  is,  of  course,  not  subordination  of  the 
relatively  particular  to  the  relatively  general,  since  this 
already  determines  their  content,  but  analytic  or  synthetic 
subsumption  of  the  relatively  concrete  to  the  relatively 
abstract.  A  system  of  ideas  is  either  the  product  of  an  analy- 
sis of  an  idea  into  several  different  ideas,  which  are  precisely 
therefore  assumed  to  be  simple  within  the  limits  of  this  system, 
or  the  product  of  a  synthesis  from  several  different  ideas 
of  an  idea,  which  is  precisely  therefore  assumed  to  be  com- 
pound within  the  limits  of  this  system. 

We  use  the  term  concept  exclusively  to  indicate  an  idea 
which  is,  and  in  so  far  as  it  is,  analyzed  into  or  synthetized 
from  other  ideas.  The  concept  is  clearly  not  exhausted  by 
the  ideas  into  which  it  is  analyzed,  nor  is  it  fully  created  by 
a  synthesis  of  other  ideas.  It  must  always  have  a  content 
of  its  own  independent  of  these  ideas,  which  cannot  be  ob- 
tained otherwise  than  by  the  observation  of  reahty  and  is 
always  a  unity  of  uniform  empirical  determinations  common 
to  many  real  data;  if  it  has  no  real  foundation,  it  has  no 
content  and  therefore  is  not  a  distinct  idea  but  a  mere  complex 
of  different  ideas.  The  analysis  or  synthesis  is  not  supposed 
to  determine  its  content,  but  to  give  this  content  a  meaning, 
to  estabhsh  a  connection  between  it  and  other  ideas;  in  analy- 
sis its  content  has  been  already  created  beforehand,  whereas 
in  synthesis  it  remains  empirically  unknown  and  will  have 
to  be  created  by  empirical  observation  after  its  meaning  has 
been  determined,  and  thus  after  certain  rational  conditions 
have  been  imposed  on  this  creation.  On  the  other  hand, 
the  ideas  into  which  the  concept  is  analyzed  or  from  which 
it    is   synthetized   are   not   exhausted   by   their   connection 


238  CULTURAL  REALITY 

with  the  concept;  each  of  them  has  an  empirical  content 
which  would  remain  even  if  the  concept  were  not  there  and 
which  may  serve  for  the  analysis  or  synthesis  of  many  other 
concepts;  the  connection  with  the  concept  and  with  the  other 
ideas  into  which  the  concept  is  analyzed  gives  only  a  definite 
scientific  meaning  to  the  given  content  of  the  idea.  If 
it  has  no  content  drawn  from  reality  independently  of  the 
concept,  then  it  is  not  a  separate  idea  but  a  mere  part  of 
the  concept.^ 

A  concept  which  has  been  or  will  be  analyzed  into  or 
synthetized  from  other  ideas  can,  as  we  know,  play  the  part 
of  a  simple  idea,  an  element  of  analysis  or  synthesis,  with 
regard  to  some  other  concept;  and  vice  versa,  an  idea  which 
was  treated  as  simple  element  in  one  system  may  become 
an  analyzed  concept  in  another.  In  this  way,  indefinitely 
complicated  scientific  systems  may  be  constructed  by  a 
hierarchical  subsumptive  organization. 

What  is  the  connection  between  this  systematic  order 
of  ideas  and  the  pre-existing  organization  of  reality?  We 
see,  indeed,  that  just  as  the  content  of  particular  ideas  has  a 
foundation  in  reality,  so  the  relation  between  ideas  as  mani- 
fested in  synthesis  and  analysis  is  based  upon  reahty  as  upon 
its  original  material.  The  relation  between  the  concept  of 
a  thing  and  the  ideas  of  properties  into  which  it  is  analyzed 
has  its  real  ground  in  the  coexistence  of  the  properties  corre- 
sponding to  these  ideas  in  the  empirical  things;  the  relations 
between  ideas  in  the  theoretic  definition  of  the  concept  of  a 
certain  type  of  situations  is  founded  upon  the  internal  unity 
of  each  situation  of  this  type  as  including  certain  really 
interrelated  things  and  developing  in  certain  teleologically 
or  causally  ordered  processes;    the  relation  of  ideas  in  the 

'  Evidently  there  can  be  no  theoretic  idea  of  a  unique  practical  element, 
that  is,  of  a  thing,  property,  relation,  process,  etc.,  which  exists  only  within 
one  system  of  reality,  though  there  can  be  ideas  of  unique  historical  objects, 
for  example,  historical  personahties,  which  belong  to  several  different  rational 
systems  of  reality  and  have  some  common  determination  in  all  of  them. 


THEORETIC  ORDERS  OF  REALITY  239 

theoretic  definition  of  the  concept  of  a  certain  type  of  scheme 
is  drawn  from  the  systematic  organization  of  the  situations 
as  conditioned  by  each  scheme  of  this  type,  etc.  But  the 
rational  ground  of  the  coexistence  of  properties  in  a  particular 
thing,  of  the  coexistence  of  things,  relations,  and  processes 
in  a  particular  situation,  of  the  coexistence  of  situations  in 
a  particular  scheme,  is  completely  different  from  the  rational 
ground  of  the  systematic  organization  of  the  ideas  of  the 
properties  as  analytically  or  synthetically  connected  with  the 
concept  of  a  thing,  of  the  organization  of  the  ideas  of  things, 
relations,  and  processes  as  analytically  or  synthetically 
connected  with  the  concept  of  a  situation,  of  the  organization 
of  the  ideas  of  situations  as  analytically  connected  with  the 
concept  of  the  scheme. 

The  empirically  given  thing  has  the  properties  which  it 
has  because  it  is  determined  with  regard  to  other  things 
contained  in  the  situation;  the  concept  of  a  thing  is  analyzed 
into  certain  ideas  of  properties  because  empirical  things 
belonging  under  this  concept,  which  on  the  ground  of  a  certain 
common  form  that  they  possess  have  been  made  the  material 
of  this  idea,  possess  properties  of  certain  classes,  none  of  which, 
however,  is  necessarily  limited  to  things  belonging  under 
this  concept  but  may  be  also  found,  with  the  same  general 
form,  in  things  belonging  under  other  concepts.  The  empiri- 
cally given  particular  situation  contains  the  things,  relations, 
processes,  which  it  does  contain  because  it  is  so  determined 
with  regard  to  other  situations  in  the  realization  of  a  scheme; 
the  concept  of  the  situation  is  analyzed  into  certain  ideas 
of  things,  relations,  processes,  because  the  empirical  situations 
of  a  certain  class,  which,  on  the  ground  of  a  common  form 
or  a  similarity  of  organization  which  they  possess,  are  the 
material  of  one  idea,  include  things,  relations,  processes, 
whose  common  forms  can  be  found  empirically  manifested 
not  only  in  situations  of  this  class,  but  also  in  situations  of 
other  classes.    And  so  on.     In  short,   science  can  indeed 


240  CULTURAL  REALITY 

reconstruct  theoretically  any  empirical,  practically  rational 
organization  of  reality,  but  only  by  isolating  it  from  the 
wider  organization  by  which  it  is  determined,  by  ignoring  the 
real  factors  which  made  it  what  it  is,  by  taking  it  as  granted, 
as  self-existing  material  of  a  concept. 

Then,  having  thus  severed  the  real  links  which  unified 
it  with  a  wider  system  of  reality,  it  determines  its  entire 
constitution  from  the  standpoint  of  an  entirely  different 
rational  systematization.  Just  as  in  the  formation  of  an 
idea  each  particular  empirical  datum  which  constitutes  its 
real  material  becomes  connected  with  many  other  empirical 
data  which  present  the  same  general  form,  to  whatever 
systems  they  may  belong,  so  in  the  formation  of  a  system 
of  ideas  each  particular  empirical  organization  which  is  its 
material  becomes  variously  and  more  or  less  closely  connected 
with  many  other  empirical  organizations,  with  which  it  may 
have  had  no  real  connection  whatever  but  whose  elements 
present  forms  similar  to  those  of  the  elements  of  the  given 
organization.  When  an  empirical  situation  becomes  not  only 
the  object-matter  of  theoretic  generalization  but  also  that  of 
theoretic  analysis  or  synthesis,  when  it  serves  not  only  as  the 
material  of  an  idea  but  also  as  the  material  of  a  system  of 
ideas  in  which  its  intrinsic  practical  organization  will  be  theo- 
retically reconstructed,  then  it  not  only  becomes  theoretically 
connected  with  those  situations  which  have  an  organization 
similar  to  its  own,  and  thus  are  taken  as  belonging  to  the 
same  class,  but  also  with  all  those  situations  which,  however, 
they  may  differ  from  it  in  their  general  form,  possess  some 
particular  things,  relations,  processes,  formally  similar  to  those 
things,  relations,  or  processes  which  the  given  situation  in- 
cludes. 

The  same  will  happen  on  a  higher  level  when  theoretic 
thought  undertakes  to  reconstruct  the  connections  which 
it  had  at  first  ignored  between  the  situation  and  other  situa- 
tions  in  a  schematic   system   of  situations.     It  will   then 


THEORETIC  ORDERS  OF  REALITY  241 

have  to  reconstruct  theoretically  this  schematic  system  of 
situations  in  its  internal  organization,  and  in  doing  this  it 
will  ignore  the  connections  which  may  exist  between  this 
particular  scheme  and  others,  if  this  scheme  is  a  part  of  some 
dogmatic  system  of  schemes.  Instead,  it  will  first  of  all 
create  an  idea  of  a  schematic  system  of  situations  of  which 
the  given  one  will  be  a  particular  case  and  thereby  connect 
the  latter,  not  with  the  schemes  with  which  it  is  really  con- 
nected, but  with  all  those  which  present  some  character- 
istic uniformity.  Then  it  will  analyze  this  idea,  taken  as  a 
concept,  into  ideas  corresponding  to  the  particular  situations 
included  in  the  schematic  system  and  their  reciprocal  deter- 
minations, thus  connecting  the  given  schematic  organization 
with  all  those  which,  even  if  perhaps  completely  different 
from  it  in  their  general  form,  include  similar  situations. 
It  may  push  this  analysis  still  farther,  analyze  the  idea  of  each 
situation,  taken  as  a  concept,  into  ideas  corresponding  to 
the  particular  things,  relations,  processes,  included  in  these 
situations,  and  thus  coimect  indirectly  the  schematic  organi- 
zation with  all  those  that,  even  if  their  situations  should  be 
different,  have  at  least  similar  things,  relations,  or  processes 
within  their  situations. 

Finally,  if  theoretic  reconstruction  reaches  the  dogmatic 
system  of  schemes,  beyond  which  the  real  practical  system- 
atization  never  goes,  or  if  in  the  given  field  practical  organi- 
zation has  not  yet  reached  a  level  of  systematization  higher 
than  the  situation  or  the  scheme,  then,  of  course,  knowledge 
has  no  pre-existing  practical  connections  to  ignore;  it  only 
creates  a  new  order,  but  always  of  a  different  type  from  the 
organization  found  in  practical  experience,  always  based  on 
ideal  uniformity  instead  of  real  determination. 

Of  course,  this  creation  of  an  order  of  reality  different 
from  the  pre-existing  practical  systematization  of  this  reality 
is  not  the  aim  of  knowledge  in  the  course  of  the  construc- 
tion of  systems  of  ideas.     The  latter  are  constructed  for  the 


242  CULTURAL  REALITY 

creation  of  new  ideas,  and  while  having  a  foundation  in  pre- 
existing reahty,  present  a  rational  organization  of  their  own 
which,  being  the  product  of  organized  creative  activity  and 
resulting  from  the  combination  of  various  materials  and 
instruments  for  the  attainment  of  definite  common  results, 
has  within  itself  the  same  fundamental  forms  as  the  organi- 
zation of  technical,  hedonistic,  political  systems.  But  knowl- 
edge has  the  privilege  of  being  not  only  a  closed  and  specific 
organization  of  objects,  but  of  being  also  able  to  become 
at  any  moment  an  organization  of  active  thoughts  which 
bear  upon  other  fields  of  reality;  and  in  this  bearing,  that 
is,  not  as  static  ideas  but  as  dynamic  thoughts,  imposes 
upon  these  other  fields  of  reality  an  order  which  these  fields 
did  not  possess.  A  system  of  knowledge  when  applied  to 
reahty  as  object-matter  of  actual  theoretic  reflection,  when 
regulating  our  observation,  establishes  between  the  many 
real  empirical  data  which  are  its  object-matter  a  set  of  sys- 
tematic connections,  which  Hke  all  connections  have  a  certain 
objective  realness.  This  theoretically  imposed  rationality 
cannot  attain  by  itself  the  same  degree  of  realness  as  a 
practically  estabHshed  organization,  since  theoretic  thought 
when  directly  appHed  to  reahty  uses  no  instruments.  How- 
ever, such  as  it  is,  it  is  evidently  sufficiently  real  to  influence 
in  a  very  marked  way  our  common  empirical  real  world, 
and  with  the  growth  and  systematization  of  knowledge, 
all  the  domains  of  historical  reality  which  knowledge  has 
influenced  appear  to  us  empirically  more  and  more  permeated 
with  a  type  of  rationality  which  can  be  only  the  product 
of  theoretic  reflection. 

Now,  the  important  feature  of  knowledge  as  system  of 
thoughts  bearing  upon  reality  is  that  it  makes  the  rational 
organization  of  reality  ever  wider  and  more  perfect  by  con- 
tinually tending,  self-consciously  or  not,  to  the  ideal  of  a 
complete  theoretic  rationalization  of  the  real  world.  This 
ideal  has  found  its  most  radical  expression  in  those  philo- 


THEORETIC  ORDERS  OF  REALITY  243 

sophical  theories  which  look  upon  the  real  world  exclusively 
in  the  light  of  theoretic  activity;  however,  it  plays  a  more 
or  less  important  part  in  every  philosophy  in  so  far  as  the 
latter  attempts  to  give  a  consistent  rational  conception  of 
reality  as  a  whole,  and  in  every  particular  science  in  so 
far  as  it  tends  to  reahze  it  within  the  particular  domain  of 
reality  which  constitutes  its  material. 

The  way  in  which  this  ideal  is  approached  differs  in 
various  branches  of  knowledge  in  so  far  as  some  of  them 
neglect  entirely  the  role  which  practical  activity  has  played  in 
organizing  the  world  and  take  only  the  last  real  results  of 
this  activity,  treating  them  as  self-existing  and  self-determined 
in  their  rationaHty,  whereas  others  take  into  account  and 
try  to  reconstruct  theoretically  some  existing  practical 
systems,  either  stopping  at  the  situation,  or  rising  to  the 
scheme,  or,  finally,  taking  even  the  dogmatic  system  of 
schemes  into  consideration.  Of  course,  each  branch  of 
knowledge,  by  the  very  nature  of  theoretic  idealization, 
has  to  ignore  whatever  practical  organizations  there  may  be 
superior  to  the  one  which  is  its  special  object-matter:  if  its 
object-matter  is  things,  relations,  or  processes,  it  ignores 
the  situation,  and  a  fortiori  the  scheme  and  the  dogma; 
if  it  idealizes  situations,  it  ignores  schemes  and  dogmas; 
if  its  method  is  specially  developed  to  study  schemes,  it 
ignores  dogmas. 

But  whatever  kind  of  organization  is  its  object-matter, 
knowledge  takes  this  organization  as  it  is  in  those  systems 
which  have  pushed  it  to  the  highest  degree  of  perfection, 
and  assumes  that  the  rational  form  of  this  organization  repre- 
sents a  type  of  rationality  which  is  universally  present, 
if  not  in  all  reality,  at  least  in  those  sections  whose  order 
appears  as  more  or  less  similar  to  the  one  accepted  as  a 
model. 

More  than  this.  Science  often  appeals  to  practical 
activity   to   construct  especial   artificial  models  of  rational 


244  CULTURAL  REALITY 

organizations  in  the  form  of  classified  collections  or  experi- 
ments, and  takes  these  models  as  representative  of  the 
real  order  universally  latent  in  empirical  reaHty,  or  in  certain 
parts  of  reality  at  least.  Since,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  reality 
does  not  grow  up  to  these  expectations  and  lacks  the  necessary 
uniformity  and  perfection  of  order,  science  uses  two  assump- 
tions to  justify  its  claims:  the  assumption  of  approximation 
and  that  of  interference.  The  first,  found  whenever  we  want 
to  reconstruct  theoretically  a  concrete  fragment  of  reality 
with  the  help  of  abstract  ideas,  consists  in  accepting  the  gen- 
eral principle  that,  although  reality  does  not  present  a  perfect 
order,  still  it  more  or  less  approximates  it,  and  the  problem 
in  each  case  is  simply  to  determine  the  rational  limits  within 
which  the  imperfect  rationality  of  experience  can  be  placed. 
Thus,  the  variety  of  empirical  organic  bodies  cannot  be  per- 
fectly defined  as  constituting  an  ideally  rational  system  of 
species,  but  an  approximate  systematization,  based  upon 
the  assumption  of  a  majority  of  average  individuals  approxi- 
mately realizing  the  essential  characters  of  the  species,  is 
rationally  possible. 

The  other  assumption,  used  when  we  analyze  a  concrete 
fragment  of  reaHty'  into  ideal  abstract  elements,  consists  in 
treating  the  imperfectly  rational  empirical  object-matter 
as  the  product  of  an  "accidental,"  purely  matter-of-fact 
(explicable  only  by  the  total  concrete  reality)  combination 
of  perfectly  rational  real  components  which  in  this  com- 
bination, interfering  with  each  other,  cannot  manifest  fully 
their  several  rational  essences.  No  causal  law  needs  ever 
to  be  exactly  realized  in  experience  because  it  is  always 
possible  to  assume  that  its  working  has  been  interfered 
with  in  the  given  case  by  some   other   causal  law,  which 

'When  we  speak  of  theoretic  analysis  or  synthesis  of  reality,  it  is  evi- 
dently only  an  abbreviation.  What  is  analyzed  or  synthetized  is  the  concept 
based  upon  the  total  object-matter  which  is  being  theoretically  reconstructed; 
since  the  concept  implies  a  real  ground,  the  abbreviation  can  be  used  without 
inconvenience. 


THEORETIC  ORDERS  OF  REALITY  245 

in  turn  never  needs  to  be  perfectly  applicable  to  unpre- 
pared experience  because  of  other  possible  interferences, 
and  so  on  indefinitely;  whereas  at  the  same  time  it  is  usually 
possible  at  least  approximately  to  reconstruct  practically 
the  model  situation,  the  isolated  closed  system  within  which 
it  has  proved  to  work,  and  thus  to  test  it  by  experiment. 

THE  PHYSICAL  ORDER 

The  theoretic  ideal  of  the  perfect  rationality  of  the 
world,  like  every  other  ideal,  continually  evolves,  and  in  every 
historical  epoch  as  we  well  know  finds  expression  in  many 
partial,  imperfectly  interconnected  and  within  themselves 
not  always  perfectly  systematized,  scientific  and  philosophical 
theories.  But  all  these  theories,  whatever  may  be  their 
object-matter  and  their  own  systematic  organization,  can  be 
classified  into  a  very  limited  number  of  types  with  regard  to 
the  general,  categorical  forms  which  they  tend  to  impose  upon 
reality.  The  origin  of  these  categorical  forms  of  theoretic 
reflection  lies  in  the  forms  which  reality  acquires  in  those 
fundamental  types  of  practical  systems  which  we  have  studied 
above.  These  practical  forms  which  in  empirical  reality  are 
never  perfect  and  develop  only  under  very  definite  conditions, 
as  we  have  seen  in  the  preceding  chapter,  when  generalized 
and  idealized  by  science  as  categories  become  in  their  actual 
appHcation  to  reality  methodological  presuppositions,  helping 
to  create  perfectly  rational  systems  of  knowledge  on  the 
ground  of  an  imperfectly  rational  reality,  and  thus  to  raise  the 
latter  also  step  by  step  to  a  higher  level  of  rationality.  If 
formulated  as  general  affirmations  about  reality  as  a  whole, 
justifying  the  belief  in  the  attainment  of  the  theoretic  ideal 
by  the  assumption  that  reality  is  rational  itself,  they  claim  to 
be  ontological  truths  a  priori — a  claim  which,  as  we  shall  see, 
must  be  rejected. 

The  oldest  and  the  most  firmly  established  set  of  such 
methodological    presuppositions,    which    precisely    therefore 


246  CULTURAL  REALITY 

has  been  most  frequently  ascribed  an  ontological  validity — 
whether  with  regard  to  absolute  "noumenal"  or  to  "phenom- 
enal" reahty  only,  is  immaterial — is  the  one  that  constitutes 
the  formal  foundation  of  that  branch  of  knowledge  which 
ignores  entirely  practical  systems  and  takes  as  its  object- 
matter  the  ultimate  elements  of  reality.  These  it  treats  as 
if  they  were  all  perfectly  determined  in  perfect  rational 
situations  but  without  regard  to  the  situations  themselves 
to  which  they  owe  whatever  determinations  they  really 
possess.  This  branch,  to  which  all  natural  sciences  of  the 
material  reality  belong,  without  exactly  splitting  into  two 
distinct  parts,  tends  nevertheless  to  a  division  of  problems 
into  two  groups,  each  of  which  presupposed  an  elementary 
order  of  reality  of  a  somewhat  different  type.  On  the  one 
hand  we  have  a  static  order  of  things,  properties,  and  relations; 
on  the  other  hand,  a  dynamic  order  of  causally  determined 
processes.  Let  us  examine  the  most  frequent  forms  of  each 
of  these  orders  separately. 

In  the  static  order,  processes  which  of  course  cannot 
be  ignored  also  have  to  be  logically  stabiUzed;  this  is  done  by 
analyzing  them  into  states  of  things,  so  that  each  process  is 
taken  as  a  succession  of  states.  Now,  a  state  is  a  property  of 
the  thing,  and  in  this  way  the  category  of  property  is  divided 
in  two:  permanent  properties,  quahties,  including  quantita- 
tive determinations  when  taken  as  belonging  to  the  thing 
itself  and  not  as  expressing  merely  relations;  and  changing 
properties,  states.  This  type  of  rationalism,  as  we  have  said, 
most  frequently  passes  from  a  methodological  to  an  ontological 
application  of  these  categories,  and  it  does  this  by  an  impUcit 
or  explicit  reasoning  which  can  be  briefly  resumed  in  this 
manner.  Because  any  empirical  complex  of  objects  can  be 
theoretically  reconstructed  as  a  rational  system  of  things, 
qualities,  states,  and  relations,  all  reahty  objectively  is  con- 
stituted by  things,  qualities,  states,  and  relations.  In  the 
most  radical  philosophical  expression  of  this  ontologism  the 


THEORETIC  ORDERS  OF  REALITY  247 

thing  becomes  a  substance,  the  property  an  attribute,  the 
state  a  modus. 

The  fundamental  characteristics  of  the  thing  as  object- 
matter  of  theoretic  reflection  are:  isolation  from  and  limita- 
tion against  other  things,  self-identity,  independence  of  the 
actual  connections  within  which  it  is  taken.  Now,  these 
formal  characteristics,  which  are  ascribed  to  the  thing  for  the 
purpose  of  present  scientific  reconstruction,  can  be  assumed 
as  belonging  really  and  objectively  to  any  particular  thing  in 
the  measure  in  which  this  thing  has  been  already  fully  deter- 
mined within  a  static  situation,  so  that  no  new  determinations 
are  supposed  to  be  added  to  it  by  the  total  situation  and  thus, 
in  defining  theoretically  the  thing  as  now  given  and  ready, 
we  do  not  need  to  take  the  situation  of  which  it  is  a  part  into 
account.  But  suppose  now  we  ignore,  not  only  for  particular 
theoretic  purposes,  but  absolutely,  the  fact  that  things 
are  determined  by  special  practical  situations  and  are  what 
they  are  only  within  the  hmits  of  these  situations;  suppose 
we  claim  that  all  the  objects  of  which  concrete  empirical 
reahty  is  composed  are  by  themselves  ontologically  things 
or  substances,  isolated  and  limited,  self -identical,  independent 
of  actual  connections.     What  will  be  the  consequences  ? 

Isolation  and  limitation,  if  neither  taken  as  dependent 
on  practical  activity  which  maintains  the  object  as  limited  or 
distinct  from  others,  because  it  makes  it  determined  by  others, 
nor  as  dependent  on  theoretic  activity  which  reconstructs 
the  object  as  isolated  or  separated  from  others,  because 
others  are  ignored  for  the  time  of  this  reconstruction,  but  as 
absolute,  real  characteristics  of  the  thing  itself,  as  static 
features  of  reahty,  are  possible  only  in  space.  We  find  in 
many  empirical  situations  spatial  order,  more  or  less  pure, 
substituted  for  concrete  extension ;  but  it  is  theoretic  thought 
which,  by  ignoring  the  particular,  variable,  and  practically 
limited  character  of  each  such  empirical  spatial  organization, 
constructs  the  unique,  absolute,  homogeneous  space  as  the 


248  CULTURAL  REALITY 

common  receptacle  of  objectively  isolated  and  limited  things, 
superimposing  this  abstract  rational  extension  upon  the  con- 
crete irrational  extension  of  the  historical  world. 

The  thing  becomes  thus  a  material  or  quasi-material 
object,  occupying  one  and  only  one  position  in  pure  extension 
at  a  given  static  moment  and  spatially  separated  from  other 
objects;  it  is  determined  as  this  thing  by  its  position  in  the 
one  common  space  and  the  space  which  it  occupies  is  deter- 
mined by  it.  Extension  becomes  thus  something  external 
to  the  thing  itself;  the  latter  has  only  so  much  of  it  left  as  it 
possesses  within  one  particular  situation  where  it  is  supposed 
given  only  in  one  abstract  objective  here,  and  it  is  not  entirely 
inextensive  only  because  it  is  simultaneously  determined  from 
the  standpoint  of  all  the  other  objects  included  in  the  situa- 
tion, each  of  which  has  its  own  distinct  here.  The  theoretic 
thing  is,  like  the  concrete  historical  object,  taken  as  element 
of  an  extensive  reality,  but  since  its  own  extension  is  limited 
in  advance,  its  participation  in  the  total  extension  of  the  world 
cannot  be  internal,  based  upon  the  intrinsic  extensiveness 
of  its  own  content  and  meaning,  as  it  is  in  the  case  of  the  his- 
torical object,  but  external,  consisting  exclusively  in  its 
occupying  a  definite  portion  of  the  one  rational  space.  There- 
fore, if  something  exactly  similar  in  content  can  be  localized 
simultaneously  in  two  different  positions  of  the  one  rational 
space,  it  is  two  different  things.  But  since  it  is  evidently 
impossible  to  substitute  space  for  concrete  extension  as  a 
miheu  of  all  experiences,  since  the  total  empirical  content 
and  meaning  of  a  concrete  historical  object,  continually 
growing,  can  never  be  exhausted  by  any  number  of  similar 
or  dissimilar,  specially  localized,  and  rationally  determined 
things,  for  all  those  variations  of  a  concrete  object  which  are 
not  determined  as  isolated  elements  of  perfect  material 
situations  and  cannot  be  interpreted  as  things  with  definite 
spatial  positions,  theoretic  reflection  adopts  a  qualification 
which   we   have   already   found   in   practical   organizations 


THEORETIC  ORDERS  OF  REALITY  249 

applied  to  particular  fragments  of  empirical  reality,  but  which 
in  knowledge  leads  to  a  distinction  cutting  the  whole  world 
in  two.  The  object  which,  having  one  position  in  rational 
space,  is  simultaneously  present  at  various  here's  of  the  con- 
crete extension,  is  taken  as  a  complex  of  one  thing  and  several 
subjective  representations. 

Similarly,  the  self-identity  of  the  thing  as  logical  subject- 
matter  is  theoretically  justified  by  the  fact  that  the  thing  in 
theoretic  reflection,  for  the  special  purpose  of  the  actually 
constructed  system  of  ideas,  is  raised  above  change;  and 
it  is  practically  possible  within  the  limits  of  one  situation, 
if  practical  activity  maintains  this  situation  identical  against 
the  evolution  of  empirical  reality.  But  the  only  way  in  which 
the  thing  could  by  its  own  virtue,  independently  of  theoretic 
or  practical  activity,  remain  really,  materially  self-identical, 
would  be  if  it  were  changeless  in  duration.  Since,  however, 
concrete  duration  is  the  product  of  activity  and  implies 
necessarily  continual  growth  of  historical  reality,  science 
has  to  substitute  for  this  irrational  duration  a  pure  rational 
time,  an  empty  form  of  existence  which  exists  quite  inde- 
pendently, whether  objects  in  it  change  or  remain  changeless. 
In  this  objective  time  the  thing  has  a  definite  period  of  dura- 
tion; it  is  at  all  only  as  long  as  it  is  self -identical,  remains 
unchanged — unchanged,  of  course,  in  that  which  constitutes 
its  objective  nature  as  this  thing;  once  changed,  it  is  no  more, 
and  a  different  thing  begins  to  exist  instead.  Thus,  duration, 
like  extension,  is  put  outside  of  the  thing  whereas  it  is  within 
the  concrete  historical  object.  Philosophy,  by  substituting 
the  substance  for  the  thing,  goes  still  farther  and  denies 
even  that  the  empty  time,  the  pure  external  duration,  is  a 
receptacle  of  substances;  it  is  only  supposed  to  include  the 
modi  of  the  substance.  A  real  substance  therefore  can  have 
no  beginning  and  no  end.  Remnants  of  this  conception  are 
found  up  to  the  present  in  the  principles  of  conservation  of 
matter  and  of  energy.     And  in  so  far  as  the  scientific  order  of 


250  CULTURAL  REALITY 

self-identical  things  lasting  for  definite  periods  of  time  cannot 
cover  empirical  duration,  in  so  far  as  an  object  continues 
or  begins  to  exist  in  concrete  duration  after  it  ceased  or  before 
it  began  to  exist  as  thing  in  rational  time,  the  same  distinction 
is  applied  as  in  the  contrast  between  concrete  and  spatial 
extension.  An  object  that  is  given  before  or  after  it  had 
existed  as  a  thing  is  a  distinct  phenomenon,  a  subjective 
representation  of  the  thing. 

Finally,  the  independence  of  the  thing  from  the  connections 
in  which  it  is  given  is  again  logically  justified  in  so  far  as, 
in  idealizing  the  thing  theoretically,  in  incorporating  it 
into  a  system  of  ideas,  we  ignore  all  modifications  which  active 
thought,  even  our  present  theoretic  reflection  itself,  may 
bring  into  its  content  and  meaning  by  connecting  it  with  other 
objects;  it  is  possible  really  and  practically  in  so  far  as 
practical  activity  makes  the  thing  independent  of  all  other 
determinations  except  those  which  it  has  received  within 
the  closed  situation  with  reference  to  other  things  included 
therein.  But  as  absolutely  real  characteristic  of  the  thing, 
independence  of  all  connections  would  be  possible  only  if 
the  thing  as  long  as  self-identical  possessed  a  complete 
self-sufficiency,  if  its  relations  to  other  things  did  not  affect 
it  in  itself.  This  implies  a  complete  externality  of  the  relation 
to  the  thing.  The  thing  as  such  cannot  be  affected  by  any 
relation;  relation  can  influence  only  either  its  spatial  position 
or  the  period  of  pure  time  in  which  it  is  localized,  but  not 
its  own  objective  nature.  The  philosophical  substance, 
for  example,  the  monad  of  Leibniz,  is  not  subjected  to  any 
relations  whatever.  Any  dependence  of  the  object  on  the 
empirical  connections  into  which  it  is  brought  that  does  not 
destroy  its  self-identity  and  yet  is  not  reducible  to  a  mere 
change  of  localization  in  time  or  space  is  classed  as  subjective; 
if  the  thing  is  differently  given  in  different  connections,  it 
is  not  that  the  thing  has  become  a  historical  concrete  object, 
which  varies  in  varying  complexes,  but  that  there  are  various 


THEORETIC  ORDERS  OF  REALITY  251 

psychological  copies  of  it,  various  mental  images  taken  by 
dififerent  persons  or  by  the  same  person  at  different  moments. 

It  is  clear  that  a  world  of  ontologically  pure  things- 
substances  could  be  only  the  object-matter  of  aesthetic 
contemplation  or  intuition,  not  of  scientific  logical  thought, 
which  has  to  analyze  and  synthetize  idealized  things.  But 
when  we  introduce  into  reality  any  ontological  category 
supplementing  that  of  the  thing,  this  means  that  we  are  making 
a  concession  in  favor  of  experience  at  the  expense  of  rational 
consistency,  that  we  have  to  deprive  the  thing-substance  of 
its  rational  inviolability  for  the  sake  of  the  creation  of  an 
empirical  science.  Though  there  is  no  logical  reason  why 
anything  that  may  disturb  the  rational  perfection  of  the  real 
thing-substance  should  not  be  put  out  of  the  way  and  trans- 
ferred into  the  all-suffering  and  always  ready  psychological 
subject,  yet  as  there  could  be  then  no  science  of  empirical 
reality,  some  of  these  disturbances,  in  a  proportion  which 
varies  from  period  to  period  and  from  science  to  science, 
are  left  with  the  objective  theoretic  order  of  reality  to  be 
accounted  for. 

And  thus,  although  things  similar  in  some  respects  in 
strict  logic  cannot  be  taken  as  being  in  any  sense  objectively 
unified  if  they  are  spatially  distinct  and  isolated  from  each 
other,  still  since  things  absolutely  isolated  and  therefore 
absolutely  unique  would  give  no  ground  whatever  for  analysis, 
we  must  assume  that  their  partial  similarity  is  an  objective 
link  between  them  in  spite  of  their  spatial  isolation.  The 
common  quality  is  objectively  one  in  many  things,  overcomes 
their  plurality,  makes  it  less  absolute.  Since  it  exists  simul- 
taneously in  spatially  separated  and  distinct  things,  it  is 
extensive,  and  yet  not  spatial,  for  it  is  not  localized  and 
isolated  in  space.  Through  it,  a  minimum  of  empirical 
extension  is  indirectly  re-introduced  into  the  things,  which 
represents  an  intermediary  stage  between  abstract  spatiality 
and  the  full  concrete  extension. 


252  CULTURAL  REALITY 

While  the  quality  of  a  thing  within  a  particular  situation 
possesses  a  reaHty  of  its  own,  but  only  as  this  particular 
quality  determined  from  the  standpoint  of  other  things 
within  this  situation;  while  the  idea  of  a  quality  possesses  a 
generality  of  its  own,  is  one  in  many  objects,  but  only  in  so  far 
as  idealized,  whereas  its  real  basis  is  always  a  plurality  of 
particular  quahties  in  particular  situations,  the  quaHty  as 
ontological  category  must  possess  both  the  reality  of  the 
particular  quaHty  in  a  situation  and  the  generahty  of  the  idea. 
It  is  real  because  it  belongs  to  real  things;  it  is  one  in  all  the 
things  in  which  it  is  found  because  it  is  not  in  each  case 
taken  as  the  product  of  a  situation,  but  as  existing  by  itself. 
Thus,  within  the  pluraHty  of  spatially  isolated  and  limited 
tilings  there  must  exist  a  plurality  of  general  qualities  cutting 
across  the  static  order  of  things,  having  each  a  non-spatial 
unity  and  differentiated  from  others  in  that  special  way 
which  we  call  precisely  qualitative  distinction.  In  philo- 
sophical rationalization  these  objective  qualities  are  either 
mere  empirical  attributes  of  substances,  if  emphasis  is  laid 
on  the  absoluteness  of  the  metaphysical  substance,  or  self- 
existing  metaphysical  essences,  if  substances  are  treated  as 
no  more  than  empirical  things.  They  are  as  self-identical 
in  time  and  as  independent  of  all  connections  as  things. 
They  can  be  rationally  systematized,  and  their  systematic 
order  serves  to  define  things  rationally;  as  we  know,  ancient 
and  mediaeval  science  was  mainly  science  of  qualities.  A 
thing,  to  remain  self -identical,  must  possess  all  the  qualities 
by  which  it  is  defined;  and  therefore  any  empirical  varia- 
tion of  an  essential  quality  which  is  not  a  change  of  the 
thing  is  a  subjective  illusion.  And  unless  the  category 
of  the  state  is  also  ontologically  objectified,  a  strict 
rationalism  of  things  and  qualities  which  assumes  a  purely 
static  order  will  classify  as  subjective  all  those  properties 
which  cannot  serve  to  define  things  permanently,  all  non- 
essential qualities  which  a  thing  may  alternatively  possess 


THEORETIC  ORDERS  OF  REALITY  253 

or   not   possess   while   in   all   other   respects  remaining  the 
same. 

Of  course,  the  introduction  of  the  category  of  state, 
though  ontologically  it  represents  a  new  break  in  the  rational 
perfection  of  the  thing  and  even  of  the  quality,  is  again 
indispensable  if  we  wish  to  rationalize  at  least  a  part  of  the 
empirical  processes  on  the  ground  of  the  static  order  of  things. 
Now,  the  ontological  state,  Uke  the  ontological  quality,  pos- 
sesses both  the  reality  of  the  particular  changing  property 
within  the  situation  and  the  generality  of  the  idea  of  this 
property;  it  is  objectively  the  same  real  state  in  all  the  things 
in  which  it  may  be  found.  But  it  does  not  simultaneously, 
or  rather  timelessly,  coexist  in  various  things;  it  may  pass 
from  thing  to  thing,  and  thus  possesses  a  kind  of  concrete 
duration  which  is  not  merely  the  occupation  of  a  certain 
period  of  pure  time,  but  implies  a  becoming  in  the  form  of  this 
very  passage  from  thing  to  thing.  In  so  far  as  a  thing  is 
subjected  to  certain  states  before  or  after  other  things,  dura- 
tion ceases  to  be  completely  external  to  it;  the  thing  begins 
internally  to  participate  in  the  duration  of  its  states;  it  is 
becoming  itself.  Since,  however,  as  a  principle,  a  change 
of  state  is  not  supposed  to  affect  the  self-identity  of  the  thing, 
its  participation  in  concrete  becoming  is  only  superficial,  is 
accidental,  not  essential  to  it.  The  passage  of  states  from 
thing  to  thing  appears  as  only  a  half-real  becoming,  a  /z?)  ov, 
to  use  in  this  connection  again  the  wonderfully  expressive 
Platonic  term,  something  that  seems  to  be  and  yet  rationally 
should  not  be.  To  make  it  completely  real,  it  must  be  con- 
ceived as  a  manifestation  of  objectively  real  relations  between 
things.  A  thing  cannot  acquire  a  new  state  by  its  own 
essence,  but  if  the  appearance  of  this  new  state  is  provoked 
from  the  outside  by  something  that  tends  to  disturb  this 
essence,  if  it  is  a  reaction  to  the  action  of  another  thing,  it  is 
in  so  far  real  even  though,  or  rather  because,  the  essence  of 
the  thing  is  not  disturbed  by  it  (Herbart) .     The  action  in  this 


254  CULTURAL  REALITY 

sense  is,  of  course,  itself  a  state  of  that  other  thing,  appearing 
at  a  given  moment  of  its  existence.  An  empirically  given  state 
is  ontologically  real  only  if  it  is  a  Hnk  of  a  relation,  either  an 
action  provoking  a  reaction  or  a  reaction  to  an  action.  A 
modification  of  the  content  of  an  object  which  can  be  inter- 
preted neither  as  determined  by  nor  as  determining  another 
modification  of  the  content  of  some  other  object  is  classed  as 
merely  subjective. 

The  ontological  relation,  real  and  affecting  the  thing, 
is  thus  a  necessary  supplement  of  the  ontological  state, 
and  it  is  also  indispensable  if  we  want  to  take  in  some  measure 
at  least  into  account  the  modifications  to  which  the  content 
of  the  object  is  subjected  in  various  connections.  Thus, 
to  the  external  and  formal  relations  of  space  and  time  are  added 
internal  and  material  relations  by  which  a  thing  is  modified 
in  its  state  under  the  influence  of  other  things.  These 
active,  internal  relations  do  not  possess  the  real  unity  in  plu- 
rality which  is  given  by  theoretic  rationalization  to  qualities 
and  states.  In  so  far  as  real,  a  material  relation  between 
two  things,  manifested  in  a  given  action  and  reaction,  is 
unique  and  particular,  localized  in  space  where  the  things 
are,  locaHzed  in  time  as  the  respective  states  when  they  come 
to  these  particular  things.  A  material  relation  between 
things  in  theoretic  rationalization  shares  thus  the  uniqueness 
of  the  concrete  active  connection,  without,  of  course,  being 
treated  any  longer  as  the  product  of  an  act  of  thought.  The 
very  terms  of  action  and  reaction  preserve  the  trace  of  the 
origin  of  this  category  in  the  actual  determination  of  objects 
by  human  acts.  But  the  physical  relation  is  treated  as  real 
only  in  so  far  as  it  constitutes  a  determination  of  a  state  of 
one  object  by  a  state  of  another,  just  as  vice  versa  a  state  is 
treated  as  real  only  if  it  is  the  Hnk  of  a  physical  relation. 
Therefore  the  connection  which  lacks  the  reciprocity  of 
determination  implied  in  the  principle  of  action  and  reac- 
tion, the  actual  connection  by  which  only  the  content  of  one 


THEORETIC  ORDERS  OF  REALITY  255 

object   is  modified,   is  from   the  physical  standpoint  only 
subjective. 

If  now  all  these  categories  of  the  static  rational  order 
are  only  used  as  methodological  presuppositions  for  the  solu- 
tion of  specific  scientific  problems,  and  their  ontological 
formulation  is  only  a  figure  of  speech  meant  to  express  nothing 
but  the  permanent  form  which  a  certain  type  of  the  ration- 
alistic ideal  preserves  through  all  the  variations  of  its  content, 
then  things,  qualities,  states,  and  relations  simply  supplement 
one  another  in  the  theoretic  reconstruction  of  any  particular 
fragment  of  reahty.  If,  however,  they  are  meant  to  express 
the  universal  objective  order  of  reahty  as  a  whole,  each 
one  of  them  excludes  the  others  and  an  ontology  based  on ' 
these  categories  is  a  set  of  contradictions. 

Thus,  we  can  isolate  any  single  quaHty  or  any  combination 
of  quaHties  from  the  content  of  an  object  and  treat  it  as 
one  in  many  objects  for  the  purposes  and  within  the  limits 
of  a  certain  scientific  problem  without  impairing  the  reahty 
of  these  objects,  because  the  concrete  object  has  content 
enough  for  many  qualitatively  determined  things  and  we 
cannot  exhaust  it  in  any  theoretic  system,  however  wide  and 
complex  the  latter  may  be.  But  if  we  think  of  all  the  objects 
as  being  in  themselves  once  and  forever  quaHtatively  deter- 
mined things  and  of  all  the  qualities  that  ever  were  and  will 
be  the  ground  of  scientific  analysis  as  objectively  real,  then 
the  entire  content  of  each  thing  will  resolve  itself  into  quaHties 
and  either  isolated  things  or  common  quaHties  will  be  unreal, 
as  is  historically  shown  by  the  insoluble  opposition  of  objective 
ideahsm  and  empiricism  on  this  point. 

Similarly,  as  long  as  we  treat  within  a  certain  scientific 
investigation  certain  determinations  of  the  object  as  change- 
less quaHties,  others  as  changing  states,  the  changelessness 
of  the  former  and  the  changeabiHty  of  the  latter  are  cor- 
relative and  limited,  quaHties  are  bound  to  remain  changeless 
and  states  are  bound  to  change  only  with  regard  to  each  other 


256  CULTURAL  REALITY 

and  within  the  limits  traced  by  the  special  problem  of  this 
investigation.  But  if  we  want  all  the  determinations  which 
ever  have  or  will  be  treated  as  qualities  to  be  qualities  onto- 
logically,  there  can  be  no  states  left;  and  if  all  those  which 
have  been  or  will  be  treated  as  states  were  states  ontologically 
there  would  be  no  quahties.  Either  of  these  contradictory 
assumptions  contradicts  in  turn  the  assumption  of  the  reality 
of  the  things.  The  opposition  between  things  and  quahties 
has  been  formulated  above;  that  between  things  and  onto- 
logical  states  is  equally  clear.  Suppose  we  have  excluded 
qualities :  then  the  thing  will  be  analyzed  into  states,  common 
to  many  things.  The  analysis  is  methodologically  unob- 
jectionable if  reaHty  is  defined  as  the  concrete  historical 
reaHty,  for  no  theoretic  system  can  exhaust  the  total  duration 
of  a  concrete  object,  and  the  latter  will  have  always  enough 
permanent  existence  left  outside  of  the  modifications  which 
we  have  isolated  as  states.  But  if  objects  are  rationally 
determinable  things  and  if  all  their  determinations  which 
can  ever  be  treated  as  states  are  states,  the  thing  is  completely 
decomposed  into  states,  just  as  it  was  before  decomposed 
into  qualities.^ 

Both  the  ontological  quality  and  the  ontological  state 
each  separately  excludes  the  other  and  excludes  the  thing. 
But  they  cannot  exist  without  the  thing;  they  have  any 
significance  at  all  only  in  so  far  as  limiting  the  ontological 
absoluteness  of  the  thing.  A  world  of  qualities  is  as  impos- 
sible as  a  world  of  states.  The  knot  of  contradictions  is 
already  inextricable;  and  it  becomes  still  more  intricate 
when  we  introduce  the  ontological  relation  into  reality  in 
general.     In  the  opposition  between  pluralism  denying  all 

'  The  objection  that  even  after  the  abstraction  of  all  qualities  or  states 
from  the  thing  something  still  remains — the  manner  in  which  these  qualities 
or  states  are  combined  in  the  thing — is  irrelevant,  for  the  manner  of  their 
combination  is  itself,  from  the  standpoint  of  consistent  ontology,  a  quality 
(compare  the  modern  German  concept  of  Gestaltqualitat)  if  permanent,  a 
state  if  changing. 


THEORETIC  ORDERS  OF  REALITY  257 

objective  realness  of  relations  and  monism  rejecting  all 
independent  realness  of  things,  qualities,  and  states,  and  melt- 
ing them  into  one  great  whole  of  indefinitely  complicated 
relations,  the  mutual  exclusion  of  the  relation  and  of  the 
other  ontological  categories  is  historically  manifest.  If, 
indeed,  a  relation  or  group  of  relations  is  methodologically 
used  to  explain  certain  particular  determinations  of  the 
concrete  object,  the  object  still  preserves  enough  independence 
to  be  itself.  But  if,  forgetting  the  limitation  of  all  such 
explanations  to  a  particular  theoretic  problem,  we  want  to 
claim  that  all  relations  which  have  been  or  will  be  found  ob- 
jectively real  and  used  to  explain  the  empirical  determinations 
of  rational  things,  are  ontologically  real,  then  no  state,  no 
quaHty,  and  no  thing  can  preserve  its  ontological  reality. 
And  since  relations  cannot  exist  by  themselves,  we  reach  an 
absolutely  irrational  mystical  One,  a  Being  which  is  identical 
with  Non-Being. 

The  second  type  of  the  naturalistic  ideal,  that  of  a  dynamic 
order  of  causally  determined  processes,  is  much  simpler 
in  its  logical  constitution.  It  implies,  of  course,  a  dynamiza- 
tion  of  things,  properties,  and  relations,  the  first  being  con- 
ceived as  empirical  complexes  of  continuous  processes,  the 
second  as  general  continuous  processes  more  or  less  lasting, 
found  in  many  complexes  at  once,  the  third  as  relations  of 
functional  dependence  between  elementary  processes  entering 
into  different  empirical  complexes.  By  isolating  causally 
related  processes  from  empirical  situations,  theoretic  ration- 
aHsm  makes  causal  relations  independent  of  the  specific 
organization  imposed  upon  the  situation  by  a  system  of 
schemes,  and  therefore  absolute.  Every  process,  elementary 
or  complex,  is  thus  taken  to  be  a  Unk  of  a  causal  series,  neces- 
sarily determined  by  some  other  process,  also  elementary  or 
complex,  and  itself  in  turn  determining  necessarily  another 
elementary  or  complex  process.  There  can  be  neither  a 
beginning  nor  an  end  of  the  series,  since  the  existence  of  the 


258  CULTURAL  REALITY 

determination  is  not  conditioned  by  anything.  Space  and 
time  are  only  in  so  far  necessary  for  the  rational  system  of 
processes  as  this  system  tends  to  substitute  itself  for  the 
system  of  things,  and  thus  takes  over  such  spatial  and  tem- 
poral problems  as  the  latter  involves.  But  by  itself,  the 
system  of  processes  does  not  imply  any  definite  conditions 
of  extension  and  duration  and  therefore  may  be  adequately 
expressed  in  terms  of  mathematical  functions,  substituting, 
of  course,  quantitative  for  qualitative  determinations  of 
particular  processes  and  general  types  of  processes.  Any- 
thing in  experience  that  is  not  a  rationally  determinable 
process,  that  appears  either  as  a  static  thing,  quality,  state, 
relation,  or  as  a  concrete  content  or  meaning,  is  in  advance 
classed  as  subjective. 

Here  again  the  same  distinction  must  be  made  as  with 
regard  to  the  application  of  the  categorical  order  of  things  to 
reality.  If  the  dynamic  order  of  processes  is  used  methodo- 
logically as  a  presupposition  permitting  the  theoretic  ration- 
alization of  any  given  natural  becoming,  it  is  perfectly 
justifiable,  particularly  since  the  static  order  of  things  does 
not  permit  us  to  attain  the  highest  level  of  rationahty  in  treat- 
ing processes,  even  when  it  takes  the  latter  into  account  as 
changes  of  states.  It  is  thus  a  theoretically  indispensable 
supplement  of,  often  a  substitute  for,  the  methodological 
static  order  of  things  in  treating  special  scientific  problems. 
But  when  conceived  ontologically  as  the  ultimate  and  uni- 
versal order  of  reality,  it  not  only  contradicts  and  excludes, 
by  reducing  it  to  subjectivity,  the  order  of  things,  but  also 
contradicts  itself  if  we  apply  it  to  the  total  becoming  of 
empirical  reality  in  general.  For  causal  explanation  presup- 
poses that  the  special  form  of  the  process  which  we  want  to 
explain  already  exists  in  experience.  In  the  practical  organi- 
zation of  reality  it  is  determined  in  advance,  and  what  we 
want  to  explain  is  only  its  appearance  at  a  certain  moment 
of  the  development  of  the  concrete  situation.     In  scientifi- 


THEORETIC  ORDERS  OF  REALITY  259 

cally  determined  reality,  in  a  perfect  system  of  processes,  it 
exists  independently  of  duration  and  extension,  and  what 
we  want  to  understand  is  only  the  causal  relation  between  a 
process  of  this  special  form  and  other  processes. 

By  implying  the  possibility  of  an  indefinite  repetition  of  a 
causal  relation  between  processes  of  a  certain  type  in  space 
and  time,  the  principle  of  causality  implies  an  absolute 
existence,  independent  of  space  and  time,  of  the  types  of  these 
processes.  And,  clearly,  the  appearance  of  a  new  type  of  a 
process  cannot  be  explained  causally,  for  a  new  type  of  a 
process,  like  a  new  content,  is  an  absolute  addition  to  empirical 
reality,  whereas  the  process  as  effect  is  equivalent  in  its 
reality  to  the  process-cause,  so  much  so  that  a  branch  of 
empiriocriticism  has  proposed  to  substitute  the  principle  of 
equivalence  for  the  principle  of  causality.  The  appearance 
of  a  new  type  in  the  effect  would  mean  that  the  cause  was 
not  merely  a  process  determining  another  process,  but  in 
some,  however  slight,  measure  a  creative  act.  An  agglom- 
eration of  processes,  however  long,  could  produce  a  new 
type,  a  new  "essence,"  however  insignificant,  a  new  kind  of 
qualitative  change,  for  example,  only  if  during  every  process 
a  little  reality  appeared  out  of  nothing,  if  in  the  effect  there 
were  a  little  more  than  in  the  cause — an  assumption  which 
contradicts  the  principle  of  causality. 

The  historical  evolution  of  reahty  shows  continually  the 
appearance  of  new  types  of  processes.  Materialistic  evolu- 
tionism itself  must  admit  that  the  immense  majority  of  the 
very  processes  found  in  the  material  world  and  now  causally 
explained  have  appeared  during  evolution;  most  physical 
and  chemical  and  all  biological  processes,  according  to  its  own 
doctrine,  could  not  have  existed  in  the  original  state  of  the 
material  reality.  But  even  putting  materialistic  metaphysics 
concerning  the  genesis  of  the  pre-cultural  world  aside,  at  every 
moment  we  find  new  absolute  beginnings  of  new  forms  of 
processes — in   industry,   in   our   own   organic   activities,   in 


26o  CULTURAL  REALITY 

social  life.  Of  course,  materialistic  evolutionism  will  not  stop 
in  its  causal  explanation  when  it  finds  a  new  form  of  a  process 
started  by  conscious  beings.  It  will  search  in  the  organism 
and  back  again  in  the  inorganic  material  environment  for  the 
causes  of  the  process.     But  this  is  ignoring  the  problem. 

The  whole  point  is  not  that  a  process  of  a  definite  formally- 
ready  kind  appeared  at  a  certain  time  and  place,  but  that 
a  type  of  processes  which  did  not  exist  before  appeared 
in  practical  experience.  Once  we  have  accepted  creative 
activity  as  the  source  of  practical  situations  within  which 
processes  are  found,  the  problem  is  perfectly  clear.  A  new 
modifi.cation  is  created  by  a  new  act,  stabilized  and  objec- 
tivated  in  a  repeatable  situation,  and  once  objectivated, 
becomes  a  content  with  a  definite  practical  meaning— a  new 
concrete  object  which,  like  all  objects,  grows  in  reality  as 
part  of  concrete  experience  and  may  even  be  given  and  enter 
into  practical  systems  as  an  object,  without  being  recon- 
structed again  by  activity.  This  development  can  often  be 
followed  almost  to  its  end  in  the  automatization  of  bodily 
activities.  It  may  be  shortened  by  creating  a  process  as  a 
real  object  with  the  help  of  instruments,  as  when  a  movement, 
first  consciously  performed  by  man,  becomes  a  part  of  the 
dynamic  organization  of  a  machine. 

Now,  all  this  evolution  of  new  processes  is  incomprehen- 
sible on  the  ground  of  the  ontological  principle  of  causality. 
For  the  purpose  of  a  particular  scientific  investigation, 
nomothetic  science  can  help  itself  out  by  the  assumption 
that  a  certain  specific  process  which  it  is  investigating  is  not 
really  new  in  its  essence,  but  is  a  combination  of  simpler 
processes,  each  of  them  old  and  known  in  its  form.  But 
this  assumption  has  no  validity  when  applied  to  the  world 
in  general.  For  as  long  as  we  deal  with  one  or  a  few  processes 
and  are  interested  only  in  reducing  these  to  old  and  known 
elementary  causal  series,  we  can  ignore  the  fact  that,  when  the 
process  is  thus  analyzed  into  a  combination  of  old  processes, 


THEORETIC  ORDERS  OF  REALITY  26 1 

the  novelty  of  its  type  is  not  explained  but  only  changes  its 
logical  character,  so  that  instead  of  a  new  type  of  process  we 
have  a  new  form  of  the  combination  of  processes.  But 
this  fact  cannot  be  ignored  when  we  claim  to  treat  in  the 
same  way  the  total  becoming  of  reality. 

Suppose  that  we  have  succeeded  in  analyzing  all  the  pro- 
cesses of  the  world  into  combinations  of  a  Hmited  number 
of  eternal,  or  rather  untemporal,  types  of  processes.  First 
of  all,  we  shall  be  forced  then  to  put  into  the  subjective, 
psychological  field  all  the  empirical  side  of  these  supposed 
combinations  of  processes,  all  the  "appearance"  of  novelty 
and  simplicity  which  these  assumedly  complex  combinations 
of  old  processes  present  in  experience.  For  instance,  if  we 
want  to  reduce  all  processes  to  combinations  of  movements, 
the  empirical  content  of  chemical  changes,  of  changes  of  lights 
and  colors,  of  sound,  smell,  and  taste,  etc.,  become  "subjec- 
tive. "  And  even  then,  the  ontological  problem  still  remains 
unsolved  and  causal  evolutionism  still  contradicts  itself;  for 
there  remains  always  to  explain  the  new  real  foundations 
which  correspond  to  these  new  subjective  data,  the  appearance 
of  new  forms  of  combinations  of  the  eternal  elementary  pro- 
cesses. The  formula  of  the  problem  is  changed,  but  the 
problem  remains  as  insoluble  as  ever. 

THE  PSYCHOLOGICAL  ORDER 

The  order  assumed  by  the  naturalistic  variation  of  the 
theoretic  ideal  is  not  only  the  oldest  and  the  most  firmly 
estabhshed  in  knowledge,  but  also  its  various  aspects  have 
been  most  thoroughly  and  consistently  developed,  and  the 
specific  tendency  of  theoretic  systematization  of  reality, 
the  tendency  to  neglect  in  so  far  as  can  be  done  the  pre- 
existing practical  organization,  has  here  found  its  most  radical 
expression.  In  other  branches  of  knowledge,  the  theoretic 
ideal  is  as  yet  less  definite.  There  are  still  many  problems 
to  solve  as  to  the  form  of  this  ideal  in  each  group  of  sciences, 


262  CULTURAL  REALITY 

and  we  hope  that  the  attention  of  logic  and  methodology 
will  be  turned  in  the  future  rather  to  the  elaboration  of  these 
other  indispensable  and  practically  most  important  but 
badly  neglected  forms  of  theoretic  rationalization  of  reality 
than  to  the  continual  perfectioning  of  the  naturalistic  ideal. 
But  as  such  a  special  elaboration  is  not  within  the  scope  of  the 
present  sketch,  we  shall  limit  ourselves  to  pointing  out  a 
few  general  questions  concerning  the  presuppositions  of 
each  of  these  non-naturalistic  orders  and  their  relations  to 
the  naturalistic  order  and  to  one  another. 

The  naturalistic  order  itself  implies,  as  we  have  seen, 
the  existence  of  "subjective"  representations,  images,  data  of 
consciousness,  or  whatever  else  we  may  call  them;  indeed, 
it  can  be  maintained  at  all  in  application  to  empirical  reality 
only  under  the  condition  that  everything  which  does  not 
comply  with  it  is  excluded  from  "material"  reality  and  put 
among  these  immaterial  psychological  phenomena.  In  this 
way,  a  psychological  domain  is  erected  outside  of  the  physical 
domain  and  grows  in  wealth  with  the  growing  rigorousness 
and  simplicity  of  the  material  order,  which  forces  us  to 
treat  more  and  more  empirical  data  as  subjective. 

It  is  impossible  to  put  clearly  the  problem  of  the  theoretic 
rational  order  of  the  psychological  domain  without  having 
first  excluded  two  most  important  and  in  a  measure  con- 
tradictory errors  which  have  been  made,  and  are  only  too 
often  still  made  in  interpret^g  psychological  reality.  First 
of  all,  it  cannot  be  sufficiently  emphasized  that  the  psycho- 
logical domain  is  originally  only  a  theoretically  separated 
part  of  the  empirical  reality,  a  part  which  is  indeed  only 
negatively  determined,  since  it  includes  everything  which  is 
left  over  from  materialistic  systematization,  but  which  even 
in  this  purely  negative  original  determination  does  not  in- 
clude all  the  empirical  world  outside  of  material  nature, 
but  only  all  reahty  outside  of  material  nature.  It  does 
not  therefore  include  active  thought,  which  manifestly  cannot 


THEORETIC  ORDERS  OF  REALITY  263 

belong  to  any  order  of  reality  whatever  but  possesses  an  en- 
tirely different  order  of  its  own,  and  has  neither  more  nor 
less  connection  with  physical  reality  than  with  psychological 
reality.  Meanwhile,  because  psychological  reality  by  opposi- 
tion to  physical  nature  is  classed  as  "subjective,"  that  is, 
as  limited  to  the  sphere  of  experience  of  an  individual,  and 
because  the  same  individual  to  whom  these  "subjective," 
"psychological"  determinations  of  reality  are  ascribed  is 
also  a  source  of  activity,  we  find  a  relatively  early  identi- 
fication of  the  "subject"  as  sphere  and  receptacle  of  psycho- 
logical, physically  unreal  experiences,  and  the  "subject" 
as  source  of  activity.  There  were,  of  course,  also  other  fac- 
tors active  in  the  history  of  this  identification  which  we  cannot 
follow  here ;  but  the  identification  once  achieved,  we  have  the 
peculiar  problem  of  the  subject-object  dualism,  which  in 
the  history  of  human  thought  belongs  to  the  same  class  as 
the  squaring  of  the  circle  or  perpehium  mobile.  On  the  one 
side  there  is  the  physical  nature,  self -existing  and  purely 
real;  on  the  other  side  the  subject,  a  receptacle  of  all  experi- 
ences which  are  not  nature,  and  a  source  of  all  activities. 

But  here  the  problem  does  not  stop.  On  the  objective 
side,  together  with  nature,  all  other  kinds  of  rational  objective 
reality  are  put — the  state,  the  system  of  theoretic  ideas, 
religious  trans-material  reahties,  etc. — for  each  of  them, 
just  as  material  nature,  leaves  irrational  remnants  for  which 
realism  finds  no  other  place  than  the  subject.  And  on  the 
side  of  the  subject,  since  the  latter  is  taken  to  be  a  source  of 
activities  and  activities  deal  not  only  with  experiences  that 
do  not  conform  with  the  objective  order,  but  also  and  in  the 
same  line  with  such  as  do  conform  with  it,  such  empirical 
data  as  are  already  included  in  the  objective  order  become 
also  put  into  the  subjective  sphere,  together  with  experiences 
excluded  from  the  objective  order;  and  the  subject  becomes 
thus  a  receptacle  for  all  experiences.  And  then  an  interest- 
ing antinomy  begins.     For,  on  the  one  hand,  the  totality  of 


264  CULTURAL  REALITY 

the  objective  orders  includes  the  individual  subjects  themselves 
whose  consciousnesses,  connected  with  their  bodies,  appear  as 
determined  in  all  their  parts  by  objective  reality,  and  on  the 
other  hand  the  individual  subjects  include  and  determine  by 
their  consciousnesses  the  objective  reality.  Either  of  these  two 
opposite  standpoints  can  be  developed  philosophically  with 
equal  consistency,  but  neither  can  be  reduced  to  the  other, 
and  their  reconciliation  is  impossible. 

If,  indeed,  philosophy  accepts  the  affirmation  that  all 
objects  are  dependent  on  consciousness  as  included  in  it,  then 
necessarily  consciousness,  as  condition  of  everything  else, 
becomes  absolute.  The  world  is  then  dissolved  into  mere 
data  of  consciousness,  and  the  objects  and  objective  orders 
must  be  reconstructed  from  these  data  and  their  subjective 
connections.  All  depends  then,  evidently,  on  the  question  how 
we  conceive  the  data  of  consciousness  and  their  connections. 
We  may  completely  neglect  the  specific  character  of  individual 
consciousness  as  it  appears  when  opposed  in  theoretic  reflec- 
tion to  the  objective  world,  and  simply  treat  as  datum 
of  consciousness  everything  just  as  it  is  given,  with  all  its 
relatively  subjective  or  relatively  objective  characteristics. 
We  reach  then  the  philosophy  of  "immanence."  But  the 
whole  significance  of  the  subjectivistic  view  is  drawn  from  the 
specific  character  of  the  subjectively  given  objects  and  con- 
nections as  against  the  objective  world;  if  the  subjective 
experiences  and  the  objective  world  together,  with  all  their 
specific  characters,  are  equally  immanent  in  consciousness, 
the  concept  of  immanence  loses  all  significance,  becomes  an 
empty  qualification  of  all  and  everything.  The  theory  of 
universal  immanence  cannot  be  overcome  by  any  arguments, 
not  because  it  is  rationally  perfect,  but  because  it  is  rationally 
meaningless. 

Suppose  now  we  want  to  preserve  all  the  specific  char- 
acters of  subjectivity  as  individual  subjectivity,  we  evidently 
cannot  deduce  the  objective  world  as  it  is  given  to  the  indi- 


THEORETIC  ORDERS  OF  REALITY  265 

vidual  along  with  and  opposed  to  his  consciousness,  from  this 
very  consciousness.  We  can  only  deny  this  objective  world 
and  treat  it  as  a  mere  appearance,  as  an  illusion  of  the  indi- 
vidual subject.  This  is  pure  solipsism,  which  is  as  invincible 
rationally  as  the  philosophy  of  universal  immanence,  though 
for  different  reasons:  it  simply  refuses  to  accept  any  prem- 
ises which  would  make  a  discussion  possible,  since  any  dis- 
cussion whatever  demands  the  recognition  of  some  ground 
transcending  individual  consciousness. 

Much  more  productive  philosophically  was  the  middle  way 
of  objective  idealism,  in  which  the  effort  was  made  to  deduce 
the  objective  world  from  consciousness  by  conceiving  con- 
sciousness as  bearing  in  itself  sufficient  foundations  of  ob- 
jectivity without  ceasing  to  be  the  subject,  though  no  longer 
the  individual  subject.  In  this  class  we  find  the  Fichtean 
absolute  Ego  and  the  Kantian  transcendental  unity  of  apper- 
ception, the  concept  of  a  social  consciousness  as  sum  or  as 
resultant  of  individual  consciousnesses,  and  finally  the  phenom- 
enalistic  doctrine  of  a  world  of  data  from  which  the  principle 
of  consciousness  is  excluded  but  which  has  the  same  formal 
character  as  the  succession  of  data  in  individual  experience 
viewed  in  the  act  of  self-reflection,  only  without  the  limitation 
in  extension  of  individual  experience. 

But  in  spite  of  the  undoubted  importance  which  this 
method  had  in  provoking  philosophical  productivity,  it  shares 
the  weakness  of  all  half-solutions.  Whereas  at  first  glance  it 
seems  to  unify  the  opposite  viewpoints,  on  closer  investi- 
gation it  proves  to  have  simply  divided  the  difficulties  which 
separate  them  and  thus  made  the  opposition  less  conspicuous. 
As  far,  indeed,  as  the  super-individual  consciousness  trans- 
scends  the  individual  either  by  its  absolute  rationahty,  as 
in  the  Kantian  and  Fichtean  ideahsm,  or  by  its  extension,  as 
in  the  sociological  and  phenomenahstic  conceptions,  the  indi- 
vidual must  take  toward  it  the  same  attitude  as  toward  the 
objective  world,  and  we  have  the  same  antinomy  as  before, 


266  CULTURAL  REALITY 

only  with  a  more  limited  application.  And  on  the  other  hand, 
in  so  far  as  the  super-individual  consciousness  preserves 
some  subjectivity,  our  reflection  about  it  must  conceive 
it  in  the  same  way  as  it  conceives  the  individual  subject,  as 
dependent  on  the  same  objective  world  which  we  try  to 
deduce  from  it,  but  transcending  it  either  by  the  incalculable 
richness  of  its  content — in  transcendental  or  absolute  idealism 
— or  by  the  perfection  of  its  form — in  theories  which  try  to 
reduce  rational  objectivity  to  social  objectivity  or  logical 
order  to  associative  order.  And  the  antinomy  repeats  itself 
once  more. 

If,  on  the  contrary,  philosophy  in  developing  its  systems 
tries  to  remain  on  purely  objective  ground,  then  consistently 
it  is  the  objective  world  which  becomes  an  Absolute.  And 
the  development  of  problematization  becomes  almost  ex- 
actly parallel  to  that  which  we  see  in  subjectivism.  The 
pantheistic  inclusion  of  the  individual  subject  with  all  its 
characteristics  in  an  absolute  objective  unity  is  a  perfect  coun- 
terpart of  the  doctrine  of  immanence  and  leaves,  Hke  the  latter, 
the  real  problem  completely  untouched.  More  important 
historically  than  (on  the  subjective  side)  solipsism,  though 
not  less  one-sided,  is  the  essential  tendency  of  post-Socratic 
philosophy  to  exclude  in  some  way  the  fact  that  the  character 
and  order  of  all  elements  constituting  the  objective  world 
vary  when  these  elements  are  given  in  the  individual  pro- 
cess of  (experience,  and  vary  even  from  individual  to  indi- 
vidual and  from  moment  to  moment.  This  tendency  leads 
to  a  division  of  the  entire  world  into  a  positive  side,  repre- 
senting the  objective  absolute  order,  and  a  negative  side, 
representing  a  mere  disturbance  of  this  order  by  the  individual 
subject;  this  negative  side  is  treated  then  as  unworthy  or 
incapable  of  being  investigated,  precisely  because  it  is  sup- 
posed to  involve  no  positive  order,  all  positive  order  belonging 
by  definition  to  the  objective  world.  A  modern  expression 
of  the  same  tendency  is  found  in  radical  materialism  and  its 


THEORETIC  ORDERS  OF  REALITY  267 

treatment  of  consciousness  as  "  epiphenomenon, "  only  this 
doctrine  is  incomparably  narrower  than  the  ancient  doctrines 
were,  because  in  the  materialistic  conception  the  objective 
world  itself  has  been  deprived  of  most  of  its  content. 

The  deduction  of  the  subject  from  the  object  brings  with 
it  again  the  original  antinomy,  though  in  a  somewhat  different 
form.  The  subject,  being  entirely  the  product  of  the  objective 
world,  is  by  the  very  essence  a  "subject  for  the  object," 
that  is,  can  and  must  be  only  a  perfectly  adequate  subjective 
counterpart  of  the  objective  reality;  otherwise  we  should 
necessarily  come  to  the  conclusion  that  the  objective  reality, 
being  experienced  by  an  inadequate  subject,  is  in  fact  a  sub- 
jective world.  Meanwhile,  the  subject  supposed  produced 
by  the  objective  world  is  precisely  the  individual,  limited,  and 
imperfect  subject,  distorting  the  objective  reality  in  the  pro- 
cess of  his  experience.  This  was,  for  example,  the  paradox 
of  the  doctrine  of  divine  creation :  God  created  men  to  under- 
stand and  glorify  him  and  to  be  happy,  and  men  were  essen- 
tially incapable  of  understanding  him,  with  the  rare  exception 
of  a  few  saints  unwiUing  to  glorify  him,  and  mostly  condemned 
to  wretchedness.  Quite  analogous  is  the  paradox  of  modern 
evolutionism:  individual  consciousness  has  developed  ex- 
clusively as  instrument  of  adaptation  to  objective  reality, 
and  it  is  quite  unadapted  to  objective  reality,  leading  all  the 
time  human  beings,  with  the  rare  exception  of  a  few  modern 
scientists,  to  various  absurd  notions  about  reality  and  to  a 
very  irrational  behavior.  And  if  we  try  to  avoid  the  para- 
dox by  putting  some  intermediary  Hnk  between  the  individual 
and  the  objective  world,  a  role  which  in  the  doctrine  of  crea- 
tion was  played  by  the  religious  system  connecting  man  with 
God  and  in  the  doctrine  of  natural  evolution  by  the  scientific 
systems  through  which  the  individual  can  understand  the 
world  and  adapt  himself  to  it,  then  our  paradox  repeats 
itself  twice  on  a  smaller  scale,  since  the  individual  is  not 
perfectly  adapted  to  the  system  of  religion  or  science  and  the 


268  CULTURAL  REALITY 

system  of  religion  or  science  is  not  perfectly  adapted  to  its 
supernatural  or  natural  object. 

Finally,  it  is  evident  that,  once  we  have  opposed  subject 
and  object  to  each  other  as  ultimate  principles  of  the  empirical 
world,  any  common  principle  to  which  we  want  to  reduce 
them  must  both  transcend  experience,  since  we  treat  the  pro- 
cess of  experience  as  essentially  subjective,  and  be  irrational, 
since  rationality  belongs  according  to  our  premises  essentially 
to  the  objective  side  of  the  world.  We  reach  thus  such 
conceptions  as  the  "One"  of  Plotinus,  the  "Will"  of  Schopen- 
hauer, the  "Life"  of  Bergson,  essences  whose  cognition  de- 
mands some  mysterious  act  of  ecstasy,  direct  apprehension, 
or  intuition,  in  which  subject  and  object  become  unified, 
while  the  real  problem  is  left  as  it  was.  For  not  only  can 
we  not  understand  how  subject  and  object  evolve  out  of  this 
mystical  essence,  but  when  they  are  already  there,  the  old 
antinomy  reappears,  since  their  common  trans-empirical 
and  irrational  ground  does  not  change  anything  at  all  in  their 
reciprocal  relations  within  the  given  world.  The  most 
consistent  is  the  solution  of  Hegel,  who  simply  accepted 
both  the  traditional  opposition  of  subject  and  object  and  the 
necessity  of  having  them  reunited,  and  postulated  this  re- 
union as  a  continuous  alternative  passage  from  one  to  another; 
but  such  a  solution  of  the  problem  is  evidently  only  a  formu- 
lation of  its  insolubility. 

The  conception  of  the  subject  as  opposed  to  the  objective 
world  can  have  thus  no  ontological  significance,  though 
it  is  perfectly  justified  methodologically.  In  other  words, 
there  are  no  phenomena  essentially  belonging  to  the  subjec- 
tive domain  as  against  others  essentially  belonging  to  the 
objective  domain,  but  when  studying  any  fragment  whatever 
of  the  concrete  world  as  possessing  a  certain  order  we  can 
always  make  a  separation  between  certain  sides  of  objects  or 
thoughts,  which  from  the  standpoint  of  this  order  are  treated 
as  objective,  existing  or  subsisting  in  accordance  with  the 


THEORETIC  ORDERS  OF  REALITY  269 

given  order,  whereas  other  sides  of  the  same  concrete  objects 
of  thoughts  may  be  qualified  as  subjective  relatively  to  the 
first  and  from  the  same  standpoint. 

There  may  be  therefore  as  many  different  ways  of  separat- 
ing empirical  phenomena  into  subjective  and  objective  as 
there  are  possible  theoretic  orders  of  the  objective  world; 
the  psychological  subject  which  we  obtain  by  excluding 
from  real  objects  and  connections  everything  which  does 
not  fit  into  the  physical  order,  is  only  one  of  these  method- 
ological conceptions  and  has  nothing  in  common  with  any 
conception  that  might  be  formed  on  the  ground  of  a  theory 
of  thought  by  excluding  from  the  domain  of  objective 
thought  all  acts  which  do  not  fit  into  a  certain  logical  order. 
And  if  instead  of  starting  with  the  physical  order  of  reality 
we  assumed,  for  instance,  the  social  order  of  reality  as 
fundamental,  our  conception  of  the  subject  would  be  also 
that  of  a  subject  of  experience,  not  of  a  subject  of  thoughts, 
but  it  would  be  entirely  different  from  the  one  which  has 
historically  developed.  This  historical  development  was 
almost  entirely  due  to  the  fact  that  human  knowledge 
started  with  material  nature  and  reached  the  highest  de- 
gree of  perfection  in  studying  material  nature,  so  that  the 
psychological  domain,  originally  defined  by  opposition  to  the 
physical  order,  has  remained  fundamentally  the  domain  of 
personal  experiences  as  opposed  to  natural  reality;  the  one 
special  conception  of  the  methodological  subject  which  has 
been  formed  from  the  naturalistic  standpoint  has  absorbed, 
so  to  speak,  all  other  possible  conceptions  of  a  subject  of 
experiences,  though  not  perhaps  those  of  a  subject  of  thoughts. 

Of  course,  the  psychological  domain  as  long  as  only 
negatively  determined  by  opposition  to  the  natural  world 
has  neither  definite  limits,  since  it  is  simply  all  reality  that  is 
not  physical,  nor  a  definite  form,  since  it  is  simply  defined  as 
not  possessing  the  physical  form.  But  the  theoretic  ideal  of 
perfect  rationality  of  the  world  compels  us  to  give  an  internal 


270  '  CULTURAL  REALITY 

limitation  and  a  rational  form  to  this  remnant  of  the  physical 
reality,  which  is  in  fact  much  wider  and  richer  than  the  physi- 
cal reality  itself,  and  that  is  what  we  do  in  psychological 
theory. 

It  is  precisely  in  psychological  theory,  in  the  attempts  to 
introduce  scientifically  a  rational  order  into  the  psychological 
domain  as  a  special  domain  of  reality,  that  we  meet  the  second 
fundamental  error  concerning  the  character  of  this  domain. 
This  error  consists  in  applying  to  psychological  phenomena 
principles  created  in  constructing  the  order  of  material  nature, 
and  in  trying  to  incorporate  the  totality  of  these  phenomena 
into  that  very  nature  from  which  they  have  been  excluded, 
so  as  to  attain  a  monistic  view  of  reality.     As  we  have  seen, 
the  only  justification  of  the  assumption  that  there  is  a  duality 
of  psychological  " representations, "  "perceptions,"  "remem- 
brances," "associations,"  etc.,  on  the  one  hand  and  material 
nature  on  the  other  hand  is  precisely  the  impossibility  of 
including  the  whole  concrete  empirical  reahty  in  the  physical 
order,  the  necessity  of  cutting  off  a  part  of  it ;  the  psychologi- 
cal phenomena  are  not  excluded  because  they  are  distinct 
by  their  essence  from  the  rest,  but  they  are  treated  as  distinct 
by  their  essence  because  they  are  excluded  from  the  physical 
order.     Being  a  receptacle  of  all  that  seems  irrational  from  the 
standpoint  of  the  naturahstic  principles,  the  psychological 
field  evidently  cannot  be  rationalized  with  the  help  of  these 
very  principles.     This  is  so  clear  that  even  the  most  radi- 
cal naturalism  never  tried  to  apply  its  rationahstic  presup- 
positions   to    psychological    phenomena    taken    directly    as 
individual  experiences.     But  it  failed  and  still  fails  to  notice 
the  contradiction  when  it  goes  at  this  problem  indirectly, 
by  substituting  for  each  psychological  phenomenon  something 
to  which  formally  one  of  the  categories  used  with  reference  to 
the  material  world  could  be  appHed;  and  it  does  not  see  that 
in  this  case  either  the  irrationaHty  seemingly  removed  from 
each  psychological  phenomenon  in  particular  will  continue 


THEORETIC  ORDERS  OF  REALITY  27 1 

to  exist  in  the  connection  between  these  phenomena,  or  if 
these  connections  become  rationalized,  the  system  of  reality 
thus  obtained  does  not  correspond  any  longer  to  the  psycho- 
logical domain,  but  to  something  entirely  different.  This 
is  precisely  what  happens  when  psychology,  instead  of  taking 
as  object-matter  the  psychological  phenomenon  itself,  the 
'^subjective  datum,"  that  is,  that  which  is  given  to  the  in- 
dividual, that  object  or  connection  which  the  individual 
experiences  but  which  cannot  be  incorporated  into  the  natural 
order,  begins  to  study  the  fact  of  the  appearance  of  this  datum 
in  individual  consciousness.  It  substitutes  then  for  a  certain 
experience  as  the  individual  himself  perceives  it,  the  occurrence 
of  a  certain  experiencing  as  the  theorist  who  observes  this 
individual  reconstructs  it. 

This  occurrence,  this  "psychological  fact,"  is  then  categor- 
ized either  as  a  state  or  as  a  process.  The  difference  between 
these  two  categories,  which  at  first  seems  to  be,  as  in  the 
material  world,  only  a  difference  between  a  static  and  a 
dynamic  view  of  the  psychological  reahty,  has  here  still 
other  logical  consequences.  For  a  state  is  essentially  the 
state  of  something  and  therefore  the  use  of  this  category 
impHes  the  assimiption  of  a  psychological  consciousness 
which,  even  if  it  is  not  defined  as  a  "soul,"  as  a  substance 
of  which  those  states  are  the  modi,  even  if  it  is  supposed 
entirely  exhausted  in  its  reahty  by  its  states  and  existing 
only  in  them,  is  nevertheless  a  basis  of  unity  of  all  its 
states,  is  at  least  a  common  field,  an  empty  receptacle  for 
all  of  them.  On  the  ground  of  this  concept,  all  the  facts  of 
experiencing  which  the  observer  finds  "in"  the  given  indi- 
vidual belong  together  as  states  of  this  individual's  conscious- 
ness, and  only  this  consciousness  as  a  whole  belongs  to  the 
objective  world.  But  the  consciousness  as  a  whole  is  evi- 
dently an  absolutely  irrational  chaos,  since  it  is  merely  a 
projection  of  the  total  individual  sphere  of  experience  and 
reflection  upon  the  screen  of  naturaUstic  categories,  without 


272  CULTURAL  REALITY 

even  that  order  which  the  individual  at  least  partially  con- 
structs within  his  sphere;  for  this  order  as  realized  by  the 
individual  within  the  empirical  chaos  of  his  experience  appears 
indeed  as  existing  and  objectively  real  to  the  experiencing  and 
acting  individual  himself,  who  knows  nature  only  from  his 
experience  and  reflection  and  for  whom  there  is  no  other 
objectivity  than  the  one  he  produces  or  reproduces,  but  it 
does  not  exist  from  the  standpoint  of  the  psychologist  who 
observes  this  individual's  experiencing  and  for  whom  this 
individual's  reflection  is  not  an  objectively  valid  activity 
constructing  or  reconstructing  an  objective  rational  order, 
but  merely  a  plurality  of  psychological  states.  The  irration- 
ality remains,  of  course,  exactly  the  same  if  instead  of  states 
of  consciousness  we  interpret  facts  of  experiencing  as  states  of 
the  individual  organism. 

The  concept  of  the  psychological  process  can,  indeed, 
escape  this  difficulty,  for  the  process  is  a  self-sufficient  onto- 
logical  category  and  does  not  have  to  be  made  dependent  on 
the  existence  of  a  common  entity — a  soul  or  consciousness. 
But  here  another  and  in  a  sense  an  opposite  difficulty  pre- 
sents itself.  For  if  conscious  processes  as  processes  of  ex- 
perience do  not  belong  together  as  mere  modifications  of  one 
consciousness  or  one  body,  they  must  belong  together  on  some 
other  ground.  Otherwise  there  would  be  no  reason  and  no 
possibility  for  a  science  of  the  psychological  reality  as  dis- 
tinct from  the  rest  of  reahty.  A  process  of  experiencing  would 
have  a  significance  only  in  connection  with  the  experienced 
object;  the  introduction  of  this  concept  would  correspond 
not  to  a  distinction  between  ''objective"  and  "subjective" 
phenomena,  but  merely  to  the  fact  that,  besides  the  individ- 
ual's having  certain  phenomena  given  to  him,  somebody 
else  (or  this  individual  himself  when  retrospectively  reflecting 
about  it)  is  aware,  as  social  observer,  of  these  phenomena 
being  given  to  this  individual,  and  is  aware  of  it  as  of  an  occur- 
rence happening  in  connection  with  some  other  occurrences 


THEORETIC  ORDERS  OF  REALITY  273 

within  that  part  of  empirical  reality  which  is  given  to  him, 
the  observer.  In  order  to  give  these  processes  the  signifi- 
cance of  elements  of  a  specific  psychological  reality,  it  is 
indispensable  that  one  conceive  them  both  as  interconnected 
and  as  at  the  same  time  distinct  from  other  processes. 

But  this  is  clearly  impossible.  For  the  only  way  in 
which  they  can  be  interconnected  is  by  being  referred  to, 
dynamically  centralized  around,  the  same  individual.  Such 
a  centralization  of  real  processes  implies  that  the  individual 
must  be  a  real  object  to  which  processes  converge  from  other 
objects  and  from  which  they  emanate  to  other  objects.  He 
cannot  be  a  consciousness,  for  then  these  processes  would  be- 
come states  of  consciousness ;  he  can  be  only  a  body.  B  ut  what 
processes  can  there  be  centralized  as  psychological  around  the 
body?  Evidently  not  the  processes  going  on  in  the  mate- 
rial environment  of  the  body,  since  these  are  already  classed 
as  natural  processes.  Can  they  be  the  organic  processes? 
The  naturalistic  schools  which  first  tried  to  reduce  psycho- 
logical phenomena  to  processes  of  organic  adaptation  accepted 
this  idea.  But  the  organic  processes  are  not  what  we  mean 
when  we  think  of  the  processes  of  experiencing.  On  the  con- 
trary, when  the  facts  of  experiencing  are  conceived  as  states 
of  consciousness,  the  psychologist  takes  into  account  the 
organic  processes  of  biological  adaptation  as  going  on  along- 
side states  of  consciousness  and  always  accompanying  them; 
this  is  the  well-known  psycho-physiological  parallelism.  Un- 
less then  the  processes  of  experiencing  are  kept  as  "epi- 
phenomena,"  which  means  simply  a  recognition  of  their 
irrationality  and  a  denial  of  any  real  or  ideal  connection 
between  them  and  the  material  natural  order,  they  have 
simply  disappeared  as  a  consequence  of  the  attempt  to  ration- 
alize them,  without  leaving  anything  instead  as  object- 
matter.  And  besides,  if  we  should  interpret  experiencing 
as  a  biological  adaptation  between  the  individual  organism 
and  his  environment,  it  is  quite  illogical  to  conceive  it  as  a 


274  CULTURAL  REALITY 

process.  There  are  no  processes  going  on  between  the  organ- 
ism and  the  environment;  there  are  only  relations  between 
organic  processes  and  processes  going  on  in  the  environment. 
The  organism  from  the  standpoint  of  the  dynamic  natural 
order  is  a  set  of  continuous  processes;  a  phenomenon  of 
biological  adaptation  is  the  causal  determination  of  an  or- 
ganic process  by  an  extra-organic  process  or  vice  versa. 
A  certain  science  is,  of  course,  free  to  study  such  relations 
between  organic  and  extra-organic  processes  instead  of  study- 
ing psychological  phenomena,  that  is,  experiences  as  given 
to  the  experiencing  individual.  But  such  a  science  is  not 
psychology;  it  is  a  part  of  biology.  The  behavioristic  school 
does  good  work  in  studying  organic  behavior  instead  of  con- 
scious data;  but  this  does  not  mean  that  it  reduces  psy- 
chology to  a  study  of  behavior,  but  that  it  has  left  the  field 
of  psychology  to  other  schools  and  gone  over  into  the  bio- 
logical field.' 

The  exclusion  of  certain  phenomena  as  psychological  from 
the  domain  of  material  nature  was,  as  we  have  seen,  due  to 
the  implicit  assumption  of  the  naturalistic  method  that  reality 
is  constituted  by  objects  and  connections  uniformly  deter- 
mined in  accordance  with  the  same  perfect  rational  order  and 
that  therefore  we  can  study  them  while  ignoring  the  vari- 
ety of  actively  constructed  situations  in  which  they  become 
determined.  It  is  consequently  evident  that,  if  we  meet 
phenomena  which  do  not  fit  into  the  natural  order,  it  is  either 
because  these  phenomena  are  not  rationally  determined  at 
all,  or  because  their  rational  determination  differs  from  that 

'  The  concept  of  psychological  process  may  be  applied,  as  we  have  seen  in 
the  preceding  chapter,  to  non-material  links  of  a  practical  causal  series,  be- 
cause in  practice  there  is  no  definite  separation  between  the  physical  and  the 
psychological  order;  but  this  separation  once  made  necessary  by  the  develop- 
ment of  physical  science,  all  processes  from  the  theoretic  standpoint  must  be 
classed  as  physical.  Therefore  the  elementary  causal  fact  in  nomothetic 
psychology  is  never  reducible  to  a  functional  dependence  between  processes, 
but  must  be  stated  in  terms  of  dependence  of  the  appearance  of  an  attitude  in 
toto  upon  another  attitude  and  a  social  value  (see  p.  280). 


THEORETIC  ORDERS  OF  REALITY  275 

which  is  assumed  as  common  to  all  objects  or  connections 
of  the  naturalistic  type  and  requires  therefore  the  reconstruc- 
tion of  the  situation  for  its  adequate  understanding.  The 
conception  that  any  phenomena  are  not  rationally  determined 
at  all  is  opposed  to  the  rationalistic  ideal  of  every  science; 
therefore  a  science  which  wants  to  study  those  phenomena 
which  naturahsm  rejects  must  decide  for  the  second  part  of 
the  alternative  and  consider  these  phenomena  as  fully  apt  to 
be  theoretically  rationalized  under  the  condition  of  having 
the  situations  to  which  they  belong  theoretically  recon- 
structed. Such  a  science  will  then  put  upon  situations  the 
same  claim  of  perfect  rationality  which  naturahstic  science 
puts  upon  objects,  ignoring  again  that  most  of  the  situations 
are  rationally  imperfect  and  that  those  which  approach 
perfection  owe  this  to  the  organizing  schematic  activity. 

In  fact,  every  particular  psychological  problem  which  we 
state,  not  in  terms  of  states  or  processes  but  in  terms  of 
individual  experiences,  is  a  problem  of  situations  instead  of 
being  a  problem  of  objects.  What  we  ask  ourselves  when  we 
investigate  individual  experience,  not  as  integral  part  of  the 
natural  world  but  as  divergent  from  the  natural  world, 
specifically  personal,  belonging  to  the  actual  sphere  of  this 
particular  individual,  is  not  "What  is  this  reahty?"  but 
"How  does  this  individual  at  this  moment  experience  this 
reality  and  why  does  he  experience  it  as  he  does?"  This 
implies  the  well-known  empirical  statement  that  a  certain 
reahty  can  be  experienced  differently  at  different  moments 
and  by  different  individuals.  But  we  cannot  accept  for 
scientific  purposes  the  whole  enormous  complexity  of  the 
concrete,  non-rationalized  empirical  world,  which  would 
force  us  to  admit  first  that  there  is  not  a  single  individual 
experience  identical  to  another  and  that  the  explanation  of  the 
individual's  actually  experiencing  a  certain  reahty  in  a  cer- 
tain way  must  be  sought  in  the  total  sphere  of  this  individ- 
ual's experience,  past  and  present.     If  we  want  to  rationalize 


276  CULTURAL  REALITY 

personal  experiences  theoretically,  we  must  search  first  for 
some  objective  similarities  between  some  of  these  experiences 
at  least,  which  would  permit  us  to  generahze  them  in  some 
measure,  to  ignore  their  variations  within  certain  objectively 
determinable  limits,  and  yet  to  take  enough  of  these  variations 
into  account  to  justify  the  distinction  between  the  uniformly 
determined  natural  reality  and  its  personal  aspects.  We 
must  have,  secondly,  more  or  less  rational  and  objectively 
determinable,  limited  sections  of  personal  experience  to  which 
we  could  refer  particular  experiences  of  an  individual  and  thus 
explain  the  particular  aspects  which  a  certain  reality  assumes 
for  this  individual  at  this  particular  moment  without  being 
forced  to  take  his  entire  concrete  personality  into  considera- 
tion. 

The  situation — which  may  not  be  perfectly  in  harmony 
with  the  demands  of  the  natural  order,  but  which  neverthe- 
less is  in  some  degree  rational — gives  us  both  a  ground  for  the 
generalization  and  a  ground  for  the  explanation  of  personal 
experiences.  A  reality  is  supposed  to  assume  similar  aspects 
in  similar  situations,  and  if  it  has  a  certain  aspect  for  the 
given  individual  at  the  given  moment,  it  is  because  it  is  deter- 
mined for  his  actual  experience  by  some  actual  situation 
of  which  it  is  a  part.  Therefore  whenever  similar  situations 
are  found,  we  expect  similar  experiences  of  given  reality, 
and,  on  the  contrary,  in  different  situations  we  expect  different 
aspects  of  this  reahty  to  appear.  Vice  versa,  whenever  we 
find  similar  experiences  of  a  reality,  we  assume  the  existence 
of  similar  situations,  whereas  different  experiences  of  the 
same  reahty  point  to  the  existence  of  different  situations. 
The  objective  natural  reality — thing,  property,  relation, 
process — viewed  from  the  psychological  standpoint,  does 
not  bear  in  its  self-identity  a  sufficient  or  even  a  necessary 
condition  of  being  always  and  by  everybody  experienced  in 
the  same  way;  nor  is  an  objective  difference  of  natural 
realities   sufficient   to   guarantee   a   general   and  permanent 


THEORETIC  ORDERS  OF  REALITY  277 

difference  of  their  representations.  To  make  the  first  experi- 
enced in  a  similar  way  and  the  second  in  a  different  way,  we 
must  have  them  included  in  similar  situations;  in  the  con- 
trary case  the  self-identity  of  the  first  may  result  in  a  non- 
identity  of  representations,  and  the  very  difference  of  the 
second  may  lead  to  an  identity  of  their  aspects. 

To  heighten  the  rationality  of  its  order,  psychology 
imphcitly  or  explicitly  assumes  that  in  a  certain  measure 
similar  situations  and  similar  experiences  are  perfectly 
identical,  and  in  repeated  laboratory  experiments  tries  to 
approach  this  identity  as  far  as  empirically  possible  by 
artificially  and  systematically  isolating  a  certain  situation 
from  concrete  experience,  and  at  the  same  time  varies  situa- 
tions in  definite  ways  so  as  to  obtain  a  more  exact  definition 
of  the  corresponding  variations  of  experiences.  Wherever 
it  cannot  create  identical  and  stable  situations  experimentally, 
it  constructs  them  by  abstraction,  implicitly  ignoring  or 
explicitly  excluding  such  personal  variations  as  can  have  no 
scientific  significance  at  the  given  stage  of  psychological 
systematization.  It  constructs  thus  analytically,  as  a  theory 
of  psychological  elements,  classes  of  experiences  correspond- 
ing to  definite  reahties  and  reconstructs  out  of  these  elements 
synthetically,  as  a  theory  of  psychological  complexes,  classes 
of  situations  which  by  their  specific  forms  are  supposed  to 
determine  the  ways  in  which  certain  groups  of  realities  are 
experienced.  Of  course  all  this  work  is  no  longer  a  recon- 
struction of  the  original  practical  situations,  but  of  situations 
qualified  as  psychological  by  the  assumption  of  an  existing 
natural  reality  to  which  all  experiences  are  supposed  to  refer. 

But  besides  this  static  order  of  psychology  there  is  a 
dynamic  psychological  order  possible,  leading,  just  as  does 
the  dynamic  order  of  nature,  to  a  determination  of  causal 
laws.  In  the  dynamic  order  of  nature  the  original  elements 
are  modifications  of  objects  as  against  the  static  natural 
order  of  which  the  original  elements  are  the  objects  themselves. 


278  CULTURAL  REALITY 

A  parallel  difference  can  be  found  between  the  static  and  the 
dynamic  orders  in  psychology.  The  former  bears  upon  the 
data  of  individual  experience  as  distinct  from  natural  things; 
its  original  materials,  the  concrete  object-matter  upon  which 
it  draws,  are  contents  of  objects.  The  static  order  ignores  the 
meaning  as  such ;  if  it  has  to  take  into  account  the  difference 
between  the  natural  relation  of  a  thing  to  other  things  and  the 
connection  which  the  individual  establishes  between  this  thing 
as  object  of  his  experience  and  other  objects,  it  either  treats 
this  connection  as  a  relation  which  the  thing  acquires  in  the 
personal  situation  in  which  it  is  given,  or  if  this  cannot  be 
done,  it  turns  the  meaning  into  a  content  and  treats  it  as  an 
aspect  of  the  thing  in  personal  experience.  The  first  happens, 
for  instance,  when  we  distinguish  the  order  of  "apperception" 
of  objects  in  personal  experience  from  their  natural  order; 
the  second,  when  we  treat  the  emotional  meaning  which  ob- 
jects acquire  by  their  connection  with  a  whole  personal  organi- 
zation of  life  as  an  emotional  content  attached  to  these  objects 
by  the  individual. 

The  psychological  experience  as  such  when  statically 
rationalized  can  have  no  meaning,  for  it  is  inclosed  and 
already  determined  within  a  situation.  But  without  mean- 
ing there  can  be  no  dynamic  order  of  personal  experience, 
for  only  in  so  far  as  an  object  has  a  meaning  for  the  indi- 
vidual can  it  have  an  active  influence  upon  other  objects  of 
his  experience.  A  psychological  datum  does  not  lead  to  any 
modifications  of  other  data.  And  it  is  impossible  that  natu- 
ral reality  should  influence  psychological  becoming;  physical 
objects  cannot  be  the  causes  of  psychological  effects,  since 
they  are  objective  standards  with  which  psychological  experi- 
ences do  or  do  not  comply,  depending  on  personal  situations. 
A  physical  object  could  influence  dynamically  psychological 
objects  only  if,  by  becoming  itself  a  psychological  object,  it 
brought  a  meaning  with  it  into  the  psychological  domain; 
but  physical  objects  have  no  meanings.     In  order  therefore 


THEORETIC  ORDERS  OF  REALITY  279 

to  have  a  rational  order  of  psychological  becoming,  we  must 
have  somewhere  objects  which  are  at  the  same  time  deter- 
mined rationally  by  situations — for  only  then  they  can  be 
psychologically  rational  data — and  are  nevertheless  dynamic 
concrete  historical  objects  with  meanings. 

Now,  such  objects  can  be  only  social.  The  social  object 
is  determined  as  element  of  situations,  but  of  many  situa- 
tions constructed  and  reconstructed  again  and  again  in  the 
experience  of  many  individuals;  in  so  far  as  determined 
within  each  situation,  it  is  a  thing;  in  so  far  as  varying 
in  fact  from  individual  to  individual  and  still  the  same, 
it  is  a  historical  object  and  the  fact  of  its  actually  being  con- 
nected all  the  time  with  various  other  objects  gives  it  a  mean- 
ing; it  opens  possibilities  and  suggestions  of  acts  which  neither 
the  psychological  datum  nor  the  natural  things  can  do. 
We  shall  return  to  this  question.  The  fact  is  that  objects 
can  have  meanings  for  psychologically  conceived  individuals, 
can  suggest  changes  of  psychological  phenomena  as  such 
only  if  they  are  social;  only  the  social  reahty  which,  though 
objectively  determined,  is  still  dynamic,  can  exercise  an 
influence  upon  psychological  reality.  A  dynamic  psychology, 
searching  for  laws  of  psychological  becoming,  must  be  a  social 
psychology. 

The  psychological  problem  is  here  no  longer  started  by 
the  divergence  of  content  between  individual  experience  and 
the  objectively  fixed  material  nature,  but  by  the  divergence 
between  the  meaning  which  an  object  has  in  the  experience 
of  one  individual  and  that  which  it  possesses  for  other  in- 
dividuals. Of  course,  the  implicit  or  explicit  assumption 
is  that  the  object  has  for  the  individual  the  meaning  it  has, 
because  the  individual  connects  it  with  certain  other  objects 
and  determines  it  with  reference  to  them  as  an  element  of  a 
definite  situation.  Therefore  the  difference  or  similarity 
of  the  influence  which  it  has  upon  the  personal  experience  of 
various  members  of  the  group  depends  upon  the  difference 


28o  CULTURAL  REALITY 

or  similarity  of  the  situations  into  which  they  introduce  it, 
which  they  accept  as  the  ground  of  its  determination.  Indi- 
vidual acceptance  or  non-acceptance  of  a  certain  situation 
with  its  consequences  as  to  the  determination  of  objects  is 
psychologically  not  to  be  explained,  for  it  would  demand  a 
complete  reconstruction  of  individual  past;  we  simply  find 
the  situation  accepted,  and  this  is  a  fundamental  psychological 
fact.  Ffom  the  standpoint  of  this  acceptance,  the  fact  of 
having  a  certain  meaning  given  to  an  object,  a  meaning 
conditioned  by  the  situation  into  which  the  object  is  being 
introduced,  becomes  itself  a  psychological  occurrence,  a 
personal  attitude  taken  toward  this  object. 

The  attitude  toward  the  object,  being  dependent  upon 
the  constructed  and  accepted  situation,  a  modification  of 
the  situation  by  the  introduction  of  some  new  object  or  group 
of  objects  will  change  the  attitude  and  produce  a  new  atti- 
tude instead.  Assuming  now  classes  of  identically  defined 
situations  common  to  a  given  social  group  and  socially  common 
objects,  social  values  determined  by  these  situations,  we  can 
always  say  what  objects  have  to  be  brought  to  (or  excluded 
from)  a  given  situation  as  accepted  by  the  individual  in  order 
to  produce  another  definite  situation;  we  can  say  what 
social  values  have  to  be  used  to  influence  the  individual  at 
the  time  in  order  to  change  a  given  attitude  into  another 
definite  attitude.  On  the  ground  of  the  general  tendency  of 
the  rationalistic  ideal  which  consists  in  searching  in  the  given 
field  of  reality  for  the  order  which  we  find  in  the  most  perfect 
instances  of  systematic  organization,  we  shall  presuppose, 
as  a  methodological  principle,  that  all  attitudes  are  con- 
ditioned by  perfect  situations  and  every  situation  belongs 
to  a  socially  uniform  and  once  and  forever  determinable 
class,  so  that  the  appearance  of  every  attitude  can  be  explained 
on  the  ground  of  some  pre-existing  attitude  by  the  influence 
of  some  social  value  (or  group  of  social  values)  which  have 
changed  the  old  into  the  new  situation.     Thus,  we  have  the 


THEORETIC  ORDERS  OF  REALITY  28 1 

formal  basis  for  laws  of  psychological  becoming  whose  general 
formula  is  not,  as  in  natural  causality,  constituted  by  two 
elements,  a  process  determined  in  its  appearance  by  another 
process,  but  of  three  members,  an  attitude  determined  in  its 
appearance  by  a  pre-existing  attitude  and  a  social  value.^ 

On  the  ground  of  these  laws,  the  psychological  evolution 
of  an  individual  or  of  a  race  may  be  reconstructed  as  a  dy- 
namic synthesis  of  situations  taken  in  the  course  of  their 
construction,  though,  of  course,  psychological  laws,  just  as 
physical  laws,  can  account  only  for  the  appearance  in  a  cer- 
tain sphere  of  psychological  reality  of  attitudes  and  social 
values  which  have  already  existed  in  experience,  not  for  the 
creation  of  new  ones,  which  have  to  be  treated  as  mere 
accidental  results  of  combinations  of  the  old  or  as  approxi- 
mate repetitions  of  the  old.  Psychology  cannot  reconstruct 
the  concrete  development  of  psychological  experience  in  gen- 
eral any  more  than  natural  science  can  explain  the  concrete 
development  of  natural  reaHty  in  general. 

And  psychology,  which  must  presuppose  for  the  purposes 
of  its  theoretic  systematization  a  perfect  uniformity  of  analo- 
gous situations  from  moment  to  moment  and  from  individual 
to  individual,  must  also  ignore,  as  we  have  seen,  cases  in 
which  the  order  which  it  presupposes  does  not  exist.  It 
must  be  therefore  supplemented  by  some  other  science,  just 
as  it  has  itself  supplemented  the  sciences  of  material  nature. 
Its  own  partial  success  in  rationalizing  phenomena  which 
natural  science  could  not  rationalize  has  proved  due  to  the 
fact  that  it  took  objects  within  the  situations  in  which  they 
are  determined  and  which  the  physical  order  ignores.  Since 
all  order  of  objects  is  due  to  situations,  psychology  can  go 

'  Cf.  William  I.  Thomas  and  Florian  Znaniecki,  The  Polish  Peasant  in 
Europe  and  America,  Vol.  I.  Methodological  Note.  I  am  resuming  here  and 
trying  to  put  on  the  general  ground  of  a  philosophical  theory  of  reality  a 
methodological  conception  of  social  psychology  and  sociology  which  Professor 
Thomas  and  I  have  developed  together,  in  the  work  quoted  above,  for  posi- 
tive scientific  purposes. 


282  CULTURAL  REALITY 

back  to  the  practical  origin  of  the  natural  order  in  individual 
experience  and  explain  thus  why  in  certain  cases  individual 
experience  harmonizes  with  the  scientifically  postulated  order 
of  natural  things  or  processes,  whereas  in  other  cases  it 
does  not.  Though  from  the  naturalistic  standpoint  expla- 
nation seems  needed  only  in  cases  of  disagreement  between 
individual  experience  and  the  natural  order,  yet  this  expla- 
nation would  be  impossible  except  on  a  ground  which 
permits  us  to  explain  also  cases  of  agreement.  In  the  same 
way,  if  we  want  to  supplement  psychology  in  cases  which 
it  cannot  handle  because  they  lack  the  required  order,  we 
must  have  a  standpoint  which  would  permit  us  also  to  under- 
stand the  origin  of  cases  which  it  does  handle  because  they  do 
present  the  expected  order.  But  no  science  of  reality  can 
understand  the  absolute  origin  of  any  rational  order  from  a 
complete  or  partial  empirical  chaos,  since  every  science  of 
reality  must  presuppose  the  order  which  it  postulates  ready 
and  existing  in  its  most  perfect  form.  Only  a  theory  of 
activity  can  explain  the  gradual  genesis  of  any  type  of  order 
from  concrete  historical  reality.  On  the  ground  of  the  sciences 
of  reality,  to  explain  the  origin  of  an  order  can  only  mean  to 
explain  the  rational  organization  of  the  systems  in  which  this 
order  is  manifested  as  a  result  of  their  determination  by 
some  wider  and  more  comprehensive  system  of  which  they  are 
a  part. 

This  shows  that  it  would  be  a  fundamental  error  to  try 
to  supplement  rational  psychology  with  its  implicit  or  ex- 
plicit postulates  of  a  certain  perfect  order  by  some  more  vague 
and  more  subtle  kind  of  psychological  investigation  which 
would  reject  all  presuppositions  of'  perfect  uniformity  of 
psychological  data,  attitudes,  and  situations,  and  try  to  de- 
scribe as  exactly  as  possible  individual  phenomena  in  their 
original  variety.  Such  a  descriptive  psychology,  provided 
it  did  not,  as  frequently  happens  in  such  circumstances, 
introduce  unconsciously  postulates  as  far-reaching  as  those 


THEORETIC  ORDERS  OF  REALITY  283 

on  which  psychological  generalizations  are  now  based,  could 
be  only  either  literature  or  a  mere  preparation  of  materials, 
which  scientific  psychology  would  then  use  according  to  its 
own  methodological  presuppositions. 

THE  SOCIOLOGICAL  ORDER 

The  only  way  in  which  problems  left  aside  by  psychology 
can  be  made  the  object-matter  of  another  science  is  by  taking 
into  account  the  dependence  of  situations  on  schemes.  All 
uniformity  of  situations  being  the  product  of  their  schematic 
determination,  the  empirical  existence  or  non-existence  of 
that  regularity  of  individual  experiences  and  attitudes  which 
psychology  must  postulate  can  be  rationally  explained  in- 
stead of  being  simply  accepted  as  given  only  if  we  interpret 
each  particular  case  as  a  result  of  the  empirical  realization  of 
schemes.  Of  course,  in  order  to  make  our  explanation  rational 
for  cases  in  which  the  required  order  is  not  present,  we  must 
make  use  of  the  supposition  that  different  schemes  when 
simultaneously  reaHzed  in  a  certain  section  of  experience 
interfere  with  each  other.  This  supposition  is  parallel  to 
that  of  physical  science  wtiich  assumes  that,  when  certain 
causal  series  are  simultaneously  developing  in  a  certain  section 
of  experience,  they  interfere  with  each  other  and  none  of  the 
respective  causal  laws  are  directly  manifested  in  experience. 
The  difference  between  the  appHcations  of  the  principle  of 
interference  to  reality  when  treated  as  natural  and  self- 
determined,  and  to  reality  when  taken  as  consciously  human 
and  determined  actively  by  practical  schemes,  consists  in 
the  fact  that  a  natural  law  when  interfered  with  by  another 
law  is  supposed  to  be  fully  realized  nevertheless,  but  in 
combination  with  the  interfering  law,  whereas  if  two  schemes 
interfere  with  each  other,  this  means  that  neither  of  them 
is  actually  reaHzed  except  in  so  far  as  the  interfering  one 
permits.  However,  in  spite  of  this  difference,  the  principle 
of   interference    permits    us    to   assume   that  all  individual 


284  CULTURAL  REALITY 

situations  are  perfectly  determined  by  schemes,  though  in 
particular  cases  a  situation  may  be  subjected  to  the  common 
determination  of  several  schemes  and  thus  present  an  acci- 
dental mixture  of  incomplete  organizations,  each  of  which  would 
conform  perfectly  with  the  schematic  type  if  it  could  be  com- 
pleted and  were  not  stopped  on  the  way  by  the  interference  of 
the  others. 

Since  psychology  has  already  put  situations  on  the  ground 
of  particularized  personal  experience  as  opposed  to  the  general 
natural  world  instead  of  taking  them  as  they  originally  are, 
that  is,  within  the  concrete  empirical  world  of  historical  reahty, 
this  new  rational  order  of  schemes  by  which  the  psychological 
order  of  situations  must  be  supplemented  becomes  defined 
theoretically  with  reference  and  in  opposition  to  particular- 
ized personal  experience,  arid  it  is  not  a  direct  reconstruction 
of  practical  schemes  as  superimposed  upon  the  historical 
becoming  of  the  total  of  concrete  experience.  In  other  terms, 
this  new  extra-psychological  reality  is  as  relative  to  the  psy- 
chological reaUty  as  the  latter  is  to  physical  reahty.  It  is 
the  specific  reahty  which  is  common  to  psychologically 
differentiated  and  isolated  individuals — common  not  because 
composed  of  self-existing  trans-psychological  things  or  pro- 
cesses, but  because  determined  by  super-individual  schemes. 
In  a  word,  it  is  the  social  reality.^ 

It  seems  hardly  necessary  to  develop  here  at  great  length 
the  arguments  showing  the  necessary  independence  of  the 

'  Since  the  present  volume  deals  only  with  the  problem  of  reality,  it  is 
evident  that  in  discussing  the  methodological  presuppositions  of  psychological 
and  social  sciences  we  have  in  mind  only  those  among  the  studies  now  included 
in  the  bibliography  of  these  sciences  which  treat  their  object-matter  from  the 
realistic  standpoint,  as  psychical  or  social  reality.  In  fact,  however,  many  inves- 
tigations classed  as  psychological  and  sociological  are  based  on  idealistic,  not 
on  realistic,  presuppositions,  and  their  actual  object-matter  is  activity.  These, 
as  we  shall  try  to  show  in  detail  in  another  volume,  belong  into  the  domain  of 
philosophy  of  culture,  which  thus  covers  the  field  of  traditional  philosophy,  a 
large  part  of  what  is  now  called  sociology,  and  much  of  the  object-matter  now 
dealt  with  in  psychological  monographs. 


THEORETIC  ORDERS  OF  REALITY  285 

social  order  from  both  the  psychological  and  the  physical 
orders.  The  very  fact  that  there  are  schemes  in  empirical 
life  guarantees  a  specific  object-matter  to  social  theory  in  so 
far  as  the  latter  is  the  only  science  of  reaHty  which  does 
deal  with  practical  schemes  determining  practical  situations 
uniformly  for  various  individuals  and  at  various  moments. 
And  it  is  clear  that  a  science  which  reconstructs  reality  as  a 
rational  order  of  schemes  cannot  be  identified  with  or  sub- 
ordinated to  a  science  which  reconstructs  it  as  a  rational 
order  of  situations  or  of  things. 

Furthermore,  since  a  social  order,  super-individual  and  yet 
working  within  individually  diversified  and  psychologically 
isolated  spheres  of  personal  experience,  must  be  admitted, 
precisely  so  as  to  allow  us  to  understand  phenomena  for  which 
personal  experience  in  its  psychological  Hmitation  offers 
no  sufficient  ground  of  explanation,  it  is  self-contradictory 
to  reduce  the  social  to  the  psychological  and  vice  versa. 
We  can  indeed  abstractly  conceive  society  as  a  synthesis  of 
psychological  individuals  just  as  we  can  conceive  the  psy- 
chological individual  as  synthesis  of  social  schemes — laws, 
customs,  mores,  religious,  intellectual  and  aesthetic  beliefs, 
economic  institutions,  technical  traditions,  etc.  But  in  either 
case  we  lose  from  sight  the  very  condition  without  which 
neither  particular  psychological  nor  particular  social  phenom- 
ena can  be  the  object-matter  of  science:  the  existence  of 
both  a  specifically  social  and  a  specifically  psychological 
order.  By  conceiving  society  as  a  synthesis  of  psychological 
individuals  we  preclude  the  possibility  of  a  rational  solution 
of  all  particular  problems  which  can  be  solved  only  with  the 
help  of  common  social  schemes  acting  in  and  through  individ- 
uals and  yet  existing  independently  of  each  of  them.  By 
conceiving  the  individual  as  synthesis  of  social  schemes, 
we  preclude  the  possibility  of  the  solution  of  all  those  problems 
in  which  the  continuity  of  personal  Ufe  or  the  uniformity  of 
experiences  in  all  conscious  individuals  independent  of  the 


286  CULTURAL  REALITY 

social  groups  to  which  they  belong  are  the  necessary  pre- 
suppositions. 

Finally,  it  is  perfectly  clear  that  we  cannot  divide  or 
classify  empirical  phenomena  into  such  as  are  by  their  onto- 
logical  essence  psychological  and  such  as  are  essentially 
ontologically  social,  since  every  phenomenon  can  be  treated 
from  either  of  the  two  standpoints.  In  general  the  problem 
of  the  relation  between  the  psychological  and  the  social, 
if  put  on  the  ground  of  an  absolute  ontological  distinction 
between  these  two  domains,  is  as  insoluble  as  the  problem 
of  the  ontological  relation  between  the  natural  reality  as  the 
''object"  and  the  psychological  "subject,"  and  leads  to  simi- 
lar contradictions.  But  as  a  methodological  distinction  of 
two  different  rational  orders,  with  no  limits  of  application 
traced  a  priori,  but  each  used  whenever  in  a  particular  case 
it  helps  better  than  the  other  to  attain  the  rationalistic  ideal  of 
science,  the  separation  of  the  psychological  and  the  social  is  as 
indispensable  as  that  of  the  physical  and  of  the  psychological. 

In  this  field,  however,  the  battle  has  been  fought  and  won 
by  the  very  progress  of  positive  sociological  investigations. 
More  dangerous  seems  to  be  the  position  of  the  sociological 
method  when  it  meets  the  traditional  self-assertion  of  natural- 
ism. Indeed,  when  viewed  from  the  standpoint  of  the  psy- 
chologically isolated  personality,  the  social  seems  to  share 
with  the  natural  its  super-individual,  trans-psychological 
character.  Thence  the  easy  temptation  to  reduce  it  to  the 
natural  by  assuming  that  whatever  in  the  individual's  psy- 
chology transcends  the  limits  of  personal  experience  or  indi- 
vidually developed  behavior  has  its  source  either  in  the 
biological  continuity  of  the  race  or  in  the  natural  environment, 
and  that  the  super-individual  social  order  is  thus  reducible 
to  the  co-operation  of  common  racial  features  and  geographical 
influences. 

If  we  omit  here  the  metaphysical  problem  of  inherited 
active  tendencies,  which  belongs  in  the  philosophy  of  activity, 


THEORETIC  ORDERS  OF  REALITY  287 

and  limit  ourselves  to  the  empirical  aspect  of  the  question  as 
concerning  the  order  of  social  reality,  the  error  of  these  natu- 
ralistic claims  is  perfectly  evident.  The  objectivity  of  biologi- 
cal or  geographical  phenomena  is  an  objectivity  of  things  and 
processes;  the  objectivity  of  social  phenomena  is  an  objec- 
tivity of  rules.  The  former,  that  is,  the  individual's  own 
organism  and  its  natural  environment,  are  supra-personal 
as  given  materials  and  instruments  of  personal  activity  which 
he  can  use  efficiently  for  his  aims  only  by  taking  into  account 
their  pre-existing  real  characters.  The  latter,  social  institu- 
tions of  all  kinds,  are  supra-personal  because  they  impose  a 
definite  form  upon  personal  activity  and  compel  the  indi- 
vidual to  choose  definite  aims  and  to  select  definite  materials 
and  instruments  for  their  realization. 

Therefore  there  is  and  can  be  no  correspondence  whatever 
between  the  biological  or  geographical  order  or  their  com- 
bination on  the  one  hand  and  the  social  order  on  the  other. 
The  same  race  in  the  same  geographic  conditions  develops  the 
most  heterogeneous  forms  of  social  organization  at  different 
periods  of  its  historical  existence;  different  races  in  different 
or  in  similar  geographic  environments  show  both  similar  and 
different  institutions  without  any  regularity  whatever.  Of 
course,  the  question  of  the  nature  of  the  materials  and  instru- 
ments given  to  activity  may  and  usually  does  condition  the 
selection  of  those  schemes  from  among  the  given  ones  which 
permit  the  group  to  organize  activity  most  efficiently  for 
the  accepted  purposes  and  under  the  given  conditions,  and 
such  relatively  most  efficient  schemes  are  apt  to  be  perpetu- 
ated and  developed;  but  the  character  of  the  social  schemes 
from  among  which  the  selection  is  made  is  no  more  determined 
by  natural  conditions  than  is  the  artistic  style  of  a  painting 
determined  by  its  object-matter.  And  even  independently 
of  those  self-evident  philosophical  considerations,  from  the 
standpoint  of  a  purely  empirical  scientific  method  a  sociology 
which,   on   the  ground  of  a   few  approximate  parallelisms 


288  CULTURAL  REALITY 

between  certain  natural  conditions  and  certain  social  forms, 
speaks  of  the  natural,  that  is  causal,  determination  of  social 
organization  by  biological  or  geographical  factors,  leaving 
aside  all  the  "exceptions,"  which  are  incomparably  more 
numerous  than  these  facts  which  seem  to  corroborate  the 
supposition  and  are  entirely  inexplicable  on  the  naturalistic 
basis — such  a  sociology  has  certainly  not  gone  beyond  the 
stage  of  the  "philosophy  of  history"  of  the  eighteenth  century. 
But  on  the  other  hand,  the  more  recent  attempts  to  deduce 
the  natural  from  the  social  order  as  one  of  the  "oldest  social 
traditions"  (expression  of  Le  Roy)  are  also  unjustified. 
For,  although  the  foundation  of  the  natural  order  is  laid  by 
situations  which  reach  their  rationally  perfect  form  only  when 
determined  by  schemes,  yet  these  situations  themselves 
could  not  constitute  a  natural  order  without  the  generaliz- 
ing abstracting  activity  of  theoretic  thought.  Furthermore, 
even  in  the  practical  organization  of  reality,  perfect  situations 
and  permanent  empirical  systems  of  perfect  situations,  such 
as  the  natural  order  of  reahty  presupposes  as  its  empirical 
basis,  can  be  attained  only  if  the  schemes  themselves  are 
systematized  by  practical  dogmas,  whereas  the  social  order 
as  such  does  not  imply  any  more  comprehensive  organization 
than  the  scheme.  Finally,  the  most  important  argument 
against  this  sociological  standpoint  is  that  the  social  order 
itself  is  not  a  primary  order  of  reality,  but  is  a  theoretic 
superstructure  raised  upon  an  imperfect  and  fragmentary 
tj^e  of  practical  organization,  and  a  superstructure  which 
could  have  no  separate  existence  in  its  typical  form  except 
in  so  far  as  supplementary  and  opposed  to  the  psychological 
order  which,  as  we  know,  is  not  primary  either.  The  prac- 
tical schemes  by  which  situations  are  determined  assume  a 
specifically  social  character  only  by  contrast  with  the  specifi- 
cally personal  psychological  situations.  Originally  situations 
are  not  personal  and  schemes  are  not  social;  concrete  objects 
and  connections  of  the  historical  reality  and  practical  systems 


THEORETIC  ORDERS  OF  REALITY  289 

of  reality  may  be  either  limited  to  the  spheres  of  experience 
and  reflection  of  one  individual,  or  extending  to  all  the  indi- 
viduals of  a  group,  or  even  covering  the  common  domain  of 
experience  and  reflection  of  many  different  social  groups  be- 
tween which  there  is  no  social  bond  whatever.  The  dis- 
tinctions between  social  and  psychological,  psychological  and 
physical,  are  distinctions  between  correlative  orders  within 
the  same  empirical  real  world,  each  independent  of  the 
other  though  all  together  dependent,  first  on  the  concrete 
historical  reahty,  secondly  on  practical  activity  which  or- 
ganizes and  rationahzes  it  in  part,  and  thirdly  on  theoretic 
thought  which  pushes  this  rationalization  as  far  toward 
unity  as  it  can  go. 

Of  course,  in  numerous  particular  cases  it  may  be  possible 
to  show  how  a  certain  systematic  organization  of  physical 
reaUty  has  grown  up  within  the  experience  of  a  social  group 
under  the  influence  of  a  socially  recognized  scheme  which  has 
been  determining  for  many  centuries  individual  practice  and 
individual  theory.  Such  special  sociological  investigations, 
up  to  the  present  pursued  only  occasionally  and  almost 
limited  to  the  French  sociological  school,  should  certainly 
become  more  frequent,  not  only  for  theoretic,  but  also  for 
practical  social  purposes,  for  they  contribute  much  toward 
strengthening  the  faith  in  the  power  of  social  culture  and 
toward  undermining  naturalistic  fetishism.  But  the  possi- 
bihty  of  such  sociological  studies  does  not  prove  the  social 
origin  of  the  natural  order  as  such,  any  more  than  the  demon- 
stration of  the  fact  that  the  presence  or  absence  of  certain 
natural  materials  has  contributed  to  the  growth  or  decay 
of  certain  social  institutions  proves  that  the  social  order  has 
its  source  in  the  natural  order. 

The  rational  character  of  the  social  order  has  been  as 
yet  only  imperfectly  determined  by  sociological  investigations 
and  methodological  studies,  precisely  because  of  the  continual 
extension  to  their  field  of  either  psychological  or  naturalistic 


290  CULTURAL  REALITY 

views.  We  can  therefore  only  outline  those  presuppositions 
which  are  logically  indispensable  for  the  constitution  of  a 
social  science  as  supplementary  and  distinct  from  other 
branches  of  knowledge.  The  fundamental  presupposition 
is,  as  we  have  seen,  that  social  reality  is  formally  constituted 
by  schemes,  by  social  rules,  formulated  or  not,  giving  uniform 
and  permanent  definitions  of  personal  situations.  But  these 
social  rules  as  opposed  to  psychological  experiences  and  atti- 
tudes are  no  longer  conceived  as  concrete  dynamic  tendencies, 
as  they  originally  are  from  the  practical  standpoint,  but  as 
static  practical  principles  imposed  upon  the  individual. 
Their  active,  dynamic  character,  by  which  they  actually 
determine  in  each  particular  case  the  reconstruction  of  the 
schematic  situation  with  the  help  of  auxihary  situations,  has 
been  separated  here  from  their  formal,  static,  generally  stand- 
ardizing character,  because  the  actual  reconstruction  of  the 
schematic  situation  is  now  a  psychological,  personal  matter, 
whereas  the  general  standard  which  this  reconstruction  must 
follow  is  social,  supra-personal.  When  the  social  rule  is  reflec- 
tively objectivated  and  formulated  in  words,  or  when  a  set  of 
rules  connected  in  any  institution  becomes  attached  to  a  com- 
mon social  symbol,  the  rule  or  the  institution  acquires  for  the 
individual  who  takes  an  attitude  toward  it  the  character  of 
a  specific  social  value  superadded  to  its  original  character  of 
a  scheme. 

Social  values  constitute  the  matter  of  social  reality 
of  which  the  schemes  are  the  form.  They  are  a  specific 
product  of  the  social  order,  intermediary  between  the  concrete 
empirical  objects  composing  historical  reality  and  the  things 
of  natural  reality.  The  scheme,  by  determining  socially 
personal  situations,  determines  also,  of  course,  the  objects 
included  in  these  situations  in  a  way  which  is  formally  general 
and  stable  and  in  so  far  similar  to  the  determination  of  things; 
the  social  object  is  thus  clearly  distinguished  from  the  con- 
crete historical  object  which  lacks  one  general  and  stable 


THEORETIC  ORDERS  OF  REALITY  291 

determination,  but  has  many  particular  and  changing  deter- 
minations. But  at  the  same  time  this  determination,  as 
social  and  opposed  to  the  psychological  variety  of  personal 
experiences,  appears  as  a  standard  imposed  upon  individual 
experiencing  of  this  object  rather  than  as  an  absolutely  real 
form  inherent  in  the  object  itself;  and  a  standard  may  be 
complied  with  or  not.  We  cannot  therefore  exclude  from  the 
object  as  socially  determined,  as  part  of  the  general  theoreti- 
cally rationalized  social  reaHty,  the  variations  of  individual 
experiences  which  disagree  with  its  social  determination  in  the 
way  we  do  with  some  particular  variations  in  constructing 
particular  practical  situations  and  with  all  disagreeing  varia- 
tions in  constructing  the  theoretic  order  of  physical  reaHty. 
These  variations  belong  in  some  measure  to  the  social  object, 
not  indeed  as  integral  components  of  its  content  and  meaning, 
as  they  do  in  concrete  historical  experience,  but  as  psychologi- 
cal influences  which  affect  the  efficiency  of  its  social  determina- 
tion, make  the  latter  appear  more  or  less  valid  individually; 
the  social  requirement  that  the  object  be  commonly  and 
permanently  defined  in  a  certain  manner  may  be  more  or  less 
realized  in  fact.  And  thus,  if  such  divergent  variations 
increase,  the  social  determination  of  the  object  may  be  judged 
as  no  longer  in  conformity  with  the  way  in  which  the  object 
commonly  and  actually  appears  to  individual  members  of 
the  group,  and  the  object  may  receive  a  new  determination. 
By  this  possibility  of  having  its  general  and  stable  determina- 
tion changed  to  another,  equally  general  and  stable  but 
different,  the  social  object  is  most  clearly  distinguished  from 
the  physical  thing  whose  determination  is  supposed  purely 
objective  and  unaffected  by  a  change  of  personal  experiences. 
Therefore,  if  we  are  forced  to  change  the  determination  of 
a  physical  thing,  we  characterize  this  change  as  a  discovery  of 
the  real  nature  of  the  thing  and  by  opposition  to  this  real 
nature  quahfy  the  preceding,  rejected  determination  as  a 
merely  social  product. 


292  CULTURAL  REALITY 

The  second  fundamental  theoretic  presupposition  about 
social  reality  is  that,  since  the  influence  of  social  rules  upon 
psychologically  isolated  individuals  is  logically  possible  only 
under  the  assumption  of  social  communication  between  them, 
a  social  rule  extends  only  as  far  as  the  necessary  social  com- 
munication reaches,  that  is,  mostly  over  social  groups  limited 
in  extension  and  duration.  Here  again  the  rule,  theoretically 
quahfied  as  social,  distinguished  itself  from  the  original 
practical  scheme  as  realizing  itself  in  concrete  historical 
reality.  Since  in  the  latter  individual  spheres  of  experience 
and  reflection  are  not  isolated  from  each  other  and  since 
social  communication,  as  we  have  seen  in  a  former  chapter, 
is  not  the  condition  of  the  community  of  experiences  but, 
on  the  contrary,  is  conditioned  by  it,  a  practical  organization 
of  reality  can  pass  from  individual  to  individual  without  any 
need  of  conscious  social  influence  and  a  scheme  has  originally 
no  limits  of  application.  Furthermore,  since  the  social 
values  are  such  in  so  far  as  determined  by  schemes,  their 
extension  and  duration,  unlike  the  extension  and  duration 
of  concrete  historical  objects,  become  equally  limited  to  a 
certain  social  group. 

Social  reality  is  thus  divided  into  sections,  each  section 
formed  by  the  social  rules  and  values  common  to  a  cer- 
tain intercommunicated  social  group.  While  these  sections 
are,  of  course,  not  entirely  isolated,  certain  rules  and 
values  can  be  communicated  from  one  group  to  another, 
still  their  isolation  is  sufiiciently  marked  to  have  social 
theory  accept,  for  each  such  section,  the  principle  of  spatial 
localization  elaborated  by  the  naturalistic  view  of  the 
world.  The  principle  is  not  applied  to  the  relations  of 
rules  and  values  existing  within  the  domain  of  experience 
of  one  social  group;  these  rules  and  values  are  socially 
extensive  because  coexisting  in  the  experience  of  many  mem- 
bers of  the  group,  but  in  so  far  as  they  are  social,  not  physical 
objects,  they  are  not  spatially  isolated  nor  limited  with  refer- 


THEORETIC  ORDERS  OF  REALITY  293 

ence  to  one  another.  But  spatiality  is  presupposed  for  the 
relations  between  groups;  each  group  with  its  total  civili- 
zation becomes  geographically  localized.  This  idea  of  a 
geographic  separation  of  civiHzation  shows  more  clearly 
than  anything  else  the  relativity  of  the  social  order  to  the 
physical  as  well  as  the  psychological  order;  while  in  historical 
reality  geographic  spatiaHty  is  conditioned  by  the  concrete 
extension  of  the  empirical  world  and  the  "geographical 
environment"  exists  within  historical  experience  as  a  part  of 
the  world  of  cultural  objects,  from  the  special  sociological 
standpoint  concrete  extension  becomes  included  in  the  pure 
rational  space  and  divided  into  sections  with  reference  to  the 
external,  formal  extension  of  the  world  of  natural  things. 

The  totahty  of  social  schemes  and  social  values  coexisting 
in  a  section  of  social  reahty  limited  to  one  group,  embraces 
a  great  variety  of  cultural  phenomena — political,  economic, 
rehgious,  moral,  intellectual,  aesthetic,  hedonistic — and  does 
not  constitute  in  any  sense  one  rational  system,  and  the 
evolution  of  all  these  schemes  and  values  does  not  mani- 
fest any  one  fundamental  law.  The  rational  theoretic  order 
of  social  reality  rehes  therefore  as  much  on  idealizing  ab- 
straction and  generalization  as  that  of  psychological  or  physi- 
cal reahty.  Out  of  the  concrete  complexity  of  the  social 
Ufe  of  a  group  single  elements  have  to  be  theoretically  isolated 
and  a  new  systematic  organization  constructed  from  them. 

Here  again  we  find  the  possibiHty  of  two  different  orders, 
a  static  and  a  dynamic  one.  The  distinction  has  become 
popular  since  Spencer  expressed  it,  but  the  rather  inadequate 
formulation  which  this  philosopher  gave  to  it  prevented  its 
importance  from  being  sufficiently  realized,  so  that  in  many 
sociological  works  we  find  it  entirely  obHterated.  And  yet 
there  are  two  entirely  different  sets  of  problems  implied 
in  it — as  different  as  the  problems  of  the  nature  of  things  and 
those  of  the  functional  dependence  of  processes  in  the  physical 
domain.     On  the  one  hand,  we  may  study  the  objective 


294  CULTURAL  REALITY 

nature  of  social  schemes  in  the  effect  which  each  of  them  sepa- 
rately tends  to  have  upon  individual  experience  and  behavior; 
that  is,  we  investigate  the  perfect  type  of  situation  as  it  is 
defined  socially  by  the  scheme  and  as,  in  accordance  with 
our  presupposition  of  a  perfect  social  rationality,  it  would 
always  be  reaHzed  in  individual  Kfe  if  it  were  never  interfered 
with  by  the  influence  of  other  schemes.  In  doing  this,  we 
should  not,  of  course,  limit  ourselves  to  a  given  formulation  of 
a  scheme  as  it  may  be  offered  by  the  legal  code,  by  religious 
or  aesthetic  canons,  by  current  moral  sayings,  by  theoretic 
judgments  expressed  in  spoken,  written,  or  printed  words, 
by  economic  contracts,  etc. ;  but  we  should  try  to  reconstruct 
comparatively,  by  a  study  of  cases  which  can  be  considered 
approximately  typical,  what  would  be  the  actual  working  of 
the  scheme  if  it  did  work  perfectly.  Thus  isolated  from  its 
social  context,  the  scheme  may  present  such  far-reaching 
analogies  with  certain  schemes  found  in  other  social  groups 
that  the  formation  of  a  class  becomes  possible.  Furthermore, 
schemes  which  differ  in  detail  as  to  the  particular  nature  of 
those  objects  and  connections  which  they  demand  for  the 
construction  of  their  situations  may  still  be  similar  with  regard 
to  the  more  general  character  of  their  material  and  to  the 
broader  outHnes  of  the  organization  which  they  impose; 
thus,  we  can  subordinate  particular  classes  of  schemes  to 
general  classes  and  reach  a  static  classificatory  systematization 
of  social  phenomena,  of  which  every  section  of  social  science 
and  every  general  system  of  sociology  offer  examples.  If  we 
want  then  synthetically  to  reconstruct,  with  the  help  of  this 
static  analytic  system,  any  particular  concrete  fragment  of 
social  organization,  we  have  only  to  find  what  schemes  are 
actually  working  there  and  how  their  coexistence  affects 
each  of  them,  how  they  supplement  or  interfere  with  each 
other.  By  studying  comparatively  the  influence  of  various 
schemes  upon  each  other,  we  reach  a  definition  of  various  so- 
cial complexes  which  can  with  more  or  less  approximation  be 


THEORETIC  ORDERS  OF  REALITY  29S 

reduced  to  a  relatively  limited  number  of  fundamental  types. 
Every  concrete  social  personality,  every  concrete  institution, 
every  artificially  or  half-artificially  isolated  fragment  of  a 
wider  social  group  (a  territorial  unit  like  a  village,  a  town, 
a  city  ward;  a  family  group;  a  professional  organization;  a 
social  class,  etc.)  is  such  a  social  complex  of  various  work- 
ing schemes,  approximately  reconstructible  and  reducible  to 
types. 

As  against  the  problem  of  this  static  reconstruction,  the 
problem  of  a  dynamic  order,  of  a  rationally  determinable 
evolution  of  social  schemes,  must  appeal  to  completely 
different  principles.  Social  reality  by  itself,  in  so  far  as  it  is 
perfectly  social,  its  schemes  general  and  stable,  and  its  values 
determined  by  schemes,  does  not  include  any  factors  of  evo- 
lution. To  say  that  the  cause  of  a  social  fact  must  be  sought 
in  another  social  fact,  if  by  fact  we  mean,  as  the  school  of 
Durkheim  does,  the  social  rule  in  its  active  determination  of 
individual  experience  and  behavior,  is  as  self-contradictory 
as  would  be  a  principle  according  to  which  the  cause  of  a 
substance  should  be  sought  in  another  substance.  A  change 
of  social  schemes  in  a  group  can  occur  only  if  the  old  scheme 
has  ceased  to  correspond  actually  to  the  prevalent  experience 
and  behavior  of  individual  members  and  the  new  scheme  has 
begun  to  correspond  to  them  instead.  This  passage  from 
the  old  to  the  new  implies  a  period  when  neither  the  old  nor  the 
new  is  perfectly  social,  when  individual  experience  and  behav- 
ior with  regard  to  the  given  values  are  very  imperfectly  deter- 
mined socially,  because  they  are  determined  by  two  different 
rules  at  once.  This  period  of  individualization  is  a  necessary 
stage  of  every  social  becoming.  The  factor  which  works 
during  this  period,  which  makes  the  old  scheme  lose  its 
determining  power  and  the  new  scheme  acquire  determining 
power,  cannot  be  defined  in  terms  of  social,  but  in  terms  of 
psychological  reality.  It  is  the  attitude  of  the  individuals  who 
accept  the  situations  imposed  by  the  new  scheme  and  reject 


296  CULTURAL  REALITY 

the  definition  of  the  old  scheme  that  brings  the  change. 
From  the  sociological  standpoint  the  attitude  alone  cannot 
produce  a  new  social  rule  directly  from  personal  situations; 
the  question  of  the  absolute  origin  of  the  social  order  from 
non-socialized  experience  and  reflection  cannot  be  solved  by 
sociology  as  a  science  of  reality  which  presupposes  an  already 
existing  social  order.  What  individual  attitudes  as  such  can 
do  is  only  to  substitute  within  the  Hmits  of  the  given  group 
one  social  rule  for  another,  to  modify  a  pre-existing  social 
definition  of  personal  situations  so  as  to  make  it  conform 
better  with  the  actually  experienced  and  constructed  personal 
situations.  The  appearance  of  a  new  social  scheme  in  a 
group  can  be  explained  therefore  only  on  the  ground  of  the 
combination  of  two  antecedents :  a  pre-existing  social  scheme 
and  an  individual  attitude.  We  have  here  a  condition  which 
is  parallel  with  that  found  in  psychological  explanation; 
there  also  the  appearance  of  a  new  individual  attitude  required 
two  antecedents,  a  pre-existing  attitude  and  a  social  value. 
Thus,  while  the  static  psychological  and  the  static  social 
orders  are  entirely  distinct  from  each  other  and  can  be  treated 
separately,  the  corresponding  dynamic  orders  encroach  upon 
each  other;  causal  explanations  of  the  psychological  demand 
the  use  of  social  elements  and  vice  versa. 

The  laws  of  social  becoming  following  the  general  formula 
scheme-attitude-scheme  (or,  if  we  objectivate  the  scheme  as 
a  specifically  sociological  value,  value-attitude-value)  will 
certainly  present  various  degrees  of  generahty,  just  as  do 
causal  natural  laws.  These  varying  degrees  will  permit  us 
to  organize  them  into  an  abstract  system.  With  their  help, 
any  concrete  social  becoming  may  be  conceived  as  the  result 
of  a  combination  of  several  laws,  and  types  of  such  combina- 
tions may  be  approximately  distinguished.  But  this  is  still 
a  question  of  the  future,  and  the  same  point  must  be  empha- 
sized here  which  we  have  already  raised  when  speaking  of  the 
natural  and  the  psychological  dynamic  orders.     A  theoretic 


THEORETIC  ORDERS  OF  REALITY  297 

reconstruction  of  social  becoming  based  upon  the  concept 
of  laws  evidently  cannot  pretend  to  explain  the  appearance 
of  absolutely  new  forms  of  social  schemes,  since  the  law  as 
such  is  always  a  law  of  repetition.  It  can  only  explain  how 
a  scheme,  already  pre-existing  in  concrete  experience,  became 
socialized,  realized,  and  appHed  in  a  certain  group  at  a  certain 
epoch,  but  not  how  it  appeared  in  the  empirical  world  in 
general  as  a  result  of  a  new  and  spontaneous  schematic 
determination  of  situations  which  were  not  schematized 
before. 

THE  IDEAL  ORDER  OF  REALITY 

The  social  order,  static  or  dynamic,  cannot  cover  entirely 
its  field  of  reality  any  more  than  the  natural  and  the  psycho- 
logical orders  can  exhaust  their  fields.  There  is  always  some 
irrationahty  left  over,  manifested  in  the  impossibility  of 
reconstructing  theoretically  any  given  static  section  of  social 
reality,  any  given  social  becoming,  otherwise  than  approxi- 
mately. No  concrete  fragment  of  the  social  world  can  be 
synthetically  reconstructed  in  its  completeness  out  of  schemes 
or  laws  of  change — neither  the  total  civih'zation  of  a  nation,  nor 
the  cultural  Hfe  of  a  class  or  of  a  locally  isolated  community 
within  the  nation,  nor  the  concrete  reaHty  of  an  empirical 
institution  with  all  the  manifold  interests  of  its  agents  and  its 
public  crossing  one  another  in  the  most  various  and  unaccount- 
able ways,  nor  even  the  relatively  limited  sphere  of  cultural 
existence  of  a  social  personality.  And  even  in  so  far  as  our 
synthetic  reconstruction  goes,  we  are  unable  to  account  fully 
either  for  the  coexistence  within  the  given  concrete  section 
of  social  reality  of  such  schemes  as  we  find  working  together 
or  for  the  co-operation  within  this  given  concrete  part  of 
social  becoming  of  such  laws  as  we  find  developing  together. 
We  can  construct  abstractly  perfect  classificatory  systems  of 
hierarchically  ordered  schemes;  we  can  hope  to  reach  some 
day  perfect  abstract  systems  of  hierarchically  ordered  laws; 
but  when  we  have  to  extend  our  abstract,  rational  order  to  the 


298  CULTURAL  REALITY 

concrete,  social  world,  we  find  that  it  applies  perfectly  only 
to  artificially  isolated,  and  therefore  also  more  or  less  abstract, 
combinations  of  schemes  or  causal  series,  whereas,  as  soon 
as  we  want  to  reconcile  concreteness  and  rationaHty,  the 
best  and  only  methodical  device  which  we  can  apply  is  the 
concept  of  the  type,  which  has  neither  a  perfect  rationaHty, 
for  there  is  no  reason  fully  accounting  for  the  fact  that  a 
particular  type  contains  certain  particular  rational  elements 
in  a  certain  specific  empirical  combination,  nor  a  perfect 
concreteness,  for  every  concrete  fragment  of  social  reality 
only  approximately  realizes  the  type. 

Sociology  by  itself  is  unable  to  overcome  these  difficulties, 
for  its  scientific  task  is  to  supplement  psychology  in  ration- 
alizing personal  experience  and  behavior  as  personal  and 
its  very  existence  is  bound  to  the  concept  of  inter-personal 
or  super-personal  reality  superimposed  upon  and  therefore 
relative  to  the  division  between  concrete  psychological  indi- 
viduals. Therefore,  in  separating  for  sociological  synthesis 
fragments  of  social  reality  from  the  whole  to  which  they 
belong,  we  must  keep  on  the  ground  of  psychological  person- 
alities and  follow  the  lines  traced  by  their  psychological 
isolation  and  social  interaction;  we  can,  in  other  words, 
separate  sociologically,  for  theoretic  reconstruction,  a  section 
of  social  culture  from  the  rest,  only  together  with  the  men  who 
participate  in  it,  who  are  controlled  by  it  psychologically  or 
are  modifying  it,  and  it  is  the  fact  of  this  fragment's  being  the 
social  reality  of  certain  men  which  permits  us  to  treat  it  as 
a  distinct  fragment.  Therefore  back  of  every  sociological 
concrete  object-matter,  however  limited  it  may  be,  there  is 
always  the  whole  complexity  of  human  personahties ;  how- 
ever much  this  complexity  may  be  reduced  on  account  of 
the  exclusion  of  the  natural  world  from  it  and  because  of 
psychological  rationalization,  it  is  still  irrational  enough  to 
prevent  any  part  of  reality  into  which  it  is  introduced  from 
ever  being  exhausted  by  any  theoretical  order. 


THEORETIC  ORDERS  OF  REALITY  299 

A  full  and  rational  scientific  synthesis  of  a  concrete  frag- 
ment of  social  culture  would  be  possible  only  if  this  fragment 
itself  were  already  empirically,  practically  rationalized;  if 
it  included  only  objects  perfectly  determined  by  situations, 
situations  perfectly  determined  by  schemes,  those  schemes 
themselves  in  a  limited,  rationally  exhaustible  number  and 
variety,  and  all  belonging  together  not  by  the  mere  fact  of 
their  empirical  coexistence  but  by  a  common  rational  deter- 
mination with  regard  to  one  another.  Now,  these  conditions 
are  approximately  found  in  a  dogmatically  organized  system 
of  schemes.  The  poUtical  organization  of  a  state,  a  system 
of  religion,  a  style  of  art  as  developed  in  particular  works, 
the  system  of  ideas  constituting  the  ready  body  of  a  science 
as  taught  in  schools,  the  economic  organization  of  a  trust, 
the  technical  division  of  labor  and  co-operation  in  a  branch 
of  industry,  are  examples  of  fragments  of  culture  whose  com- 
plexity can  be  assumed  theoretically  exhaustible  and  whose 
systematization  is  approximately  rational.  And  the  social 
order,  even  within  the  limits  which  it  is  rational,  presupposes 
imphcitly  a  dogmatic  stabiHzation  and  imposition  of  schemes 
upon  social  hfe;  otherwise  there  would  be  no  ground  for  the 
assumption  that  any  scheme  will  continue  to  work  within 
a  given  section  of  social  reahty  until  causally  supplanted  by 
a  different  one. 

In  so  far  as  we  succeed  in  subdividing  a  sphere  of  social 
civiUzation  into  such  rational  fragments,  the  difficulties 
connected  with  the  synthetic  reconstruction  of  sections  of 
social  reahty  are  evidently  removed.  But  we  are  no  longer 
in  the  domain  of  sociology.  The  reahty  with  which  we  deal 
is  no  longer  social  in  the  exact  sense  of  the  term,  for  in  the  very 
measure  in  which  we  want  such  systems  of  schemes  to  be 
rationally  perfect,  we  must  abstractly  exclude  the  concrete 
complexities  of  psychological  individuals  as  their  empirical 
foundation  and  limit  the  manifoldness  of  social  schemes  by 
which  these  psychologically  separated  complexities  are  united 


300  CULTURAL  REALITY 

and  determined  socially.  Our  object-matter  is  no  longer  the 
group  or  the  personality  as  typical  combination  of  various 
social  schemes.  Men  count  exclusively  as  bearers  of  the  given 
system,  as  underlying  foundation  upon  which  the  system 
becomes  reahzed  in  extension  and  duration.  From  the  stand- 
point of  a  perfect  state  organization,  a  human  group  is  not  a 
concrete  historical  nation  with  multiform  half-chaotically 
combined  spheres  of  cultural  interests,  but  exclusively  a  body 
of  pohtical  beings,  subjects,  or  citizens,  determined  only  with 
regard  to  their  role  as  governed  or  governing,  as  participating 
in  the  realization  and  maintenance  of  the  state  system. 
From  the  standpoint  of  a  religious  system,  men  are  not  a 
concrete  gathering  of  individuals  whose  Hves  are  determined 
not  only  by  reHgious,  but  also  by  hedonistic,  aesthetic,  intel- 
lectual, economic,  pohtical,  and  similar  schemes;  they  are 
an  organized  church,  a  body  of  purely  religious  beings  whose 
only  significance  is  to  make  the  religious  system  a  historical 
reality.  From  the  standpoint  of  a  ready  system  of  art  or 
science,  they  are  not  a  scattered  plurality  of  complicated  and 
various  personal  types,  but  united  and  relatively  homogeneous 
spheres  of  artists  plus  the  public,  of  masters  plus  students, 
defined  exclusively  in  view  of  their  task  of  realizing  and  per- 
petuating the  historical  existence  of  the  given  art  of  science. 
From  the  standpoint  of  an  economic  system  of  schemes,  they 
are  homines  oeconomici,  the  abstract  human  entities  whose 
experiences  and  attitudes  are  exclusively  determined  by 
this  system  of  schemes  so  that  the  latter  can  be  realized; 
from  that  of  a  technical  system,  they  are  exclusively  technical 
workers,  planning  minds,  or  executing  hands,  etc. 

Of  course,  when  we  ask  ourselves  how  a  given  system 
of  schemes  can  be  reahzed  psychologically  or  sociologically, 
or  what  is  its  psychological  or  its  sociological  significance, 
we  have  to  reintroduce  the  psychological  individual  or  social 
type;  but  then  the  system  itself  is  no  longer  a  perfect  rational 
order  of  definite  schemes,  but  a  disconnected  set  of  psycho- 


THEORETIC  ORDERS  OF  REALITY  301 

logical  experiences  or  social  values,  to  be  rationally  recon- 
structed by  psychological  or  sociological  methods.  It  is 
hardly  necessary  to  mention  that  a  psychological  reconstruc- 
tion cannot  by  any  means  follow  the  rational  organization  of 
such  a  system  of  schemes,  but  breaks  the  latter  up  into  an 
indefinite  pluraHty  of  personal  subjective  data  or  attitudes. 
These  data  are  classified  alongside  other  experiences  of  each 
psychological  individual  who  in  his  own  way  perceives  or 
conceives  the  system — experiences  which  have  nothing  to  do 
with  this  system  as  objectively  closed  and  rationally  organized 
— and  these  attitudes  are  dynamically  connected  with  other 
attitudes  which  belong  to  entirely  different  domains.  But 
it  is  worth  emphasizing,  in  view  of  the  growing  tendency  to 
ignore  this  super-sociological  or  extra-sociological  order  for  the 
benefit  of  sociology,  that  a  sociological  reconstruction  of  a 
political,  rehgious,  economic,  aesthetic,  system  is  as  impossible 
as  a  psychological  one. 

The  conditions  of  scientific  development  in  the  field  of 
social  culture  have  been  different  from  those  in  other  fields. 
Whereas  the  scientific  recognition  of  the  psychological  order 
followed  that  of  the  physical  order  and  the  realization  of  a 
sociological  order  came  later  still — an  evolution  which,  as  we 
see,  corresponds  to  the  logical  connection  between  these  three 
types  of  the  rationalistic  ideal — the  recognition  and  scientific 
treatment  of  dogmatically  determined  systems  of  schemes  of 
the  kind  illustrated  by  our  examples  preceded  often  by  many 
centuries  any  methodical  attempts  of  a  sociological  treatment 
of  the  respective  domains.  Thus,  the  theory  of  the  state  was 
already  highly  developed  in  Greece,  whereas  consciously  socio- 
logical studies  of  political  schemes  hardly  go  back  farther  than 
Spencer's  Political  Institutions;  a  historical  theory  of  scientific 
systems  begins  with  Aristotle,  if  not  with  Plato,  whereas  a  sys- 
tematic sociological  treatment  of  intellectual  schemes  has  been 
started  just  recently;  economic  systems  are  methodically 
studied  by  EngHsh  economic  science  of  the  eighteenth  century, 


302  CULTURAL  REALITY 

whereas  a  sociological  study  of  economic  schemes  is  scarcely 
more  than  thirty  years  old;  and  so  on.  The  reason  of  this  will 
become  clear  when  we  realize — a  point  which  will  be  treated 
presently — that  the  rational  organization  of  these  systems  from 
the  theoretic  standpoint  appears  as  an  order  of  reality  which, 
while  supplementing  and  continuing  other  orders,  differs 
from  them,  in  that  reality  by  its  own  pre-existing  nature 
does  not  contribute  anything  to  its  formation;  this  order  is 
an  immediate  and  full  manifestation,  in  the  field  of  reality, 
of  the  logical  organization  of  active  thought.  The  systematic 
order  which  logical  thought,  by  virtue  of  its  own  organization 
alone,  tends  to  produce  in  reality  and  which  it  always  would 
produce  if  not  forced  to  comply  in  some  measure  for  its  own 
purposes  with  the  re-existing  real  conditions,  began  to  be 
abstractly  studied  long  before  the  study  of  those  real  orders 
in  which  the  pre-existing  concrete  reaHty  cannot  be  neglected 
had  reached  the  problem  of  the  sociological  order.  For  it  is 
always  the  first  impluse  of  theoretic  reflection,  in  its  efforts  to 
reach  the  ideal  of  perfect  rationality,  to  ignore  the  limitations 
which  reality  by  its  concreteness  imposes  upon  rationaHzing 
thought.  It  is  not  strange  therefore  that  idealistic  theories 
of  the  state,  of  science,  of  religion,  of  economics,  etc.,  have 
been  evolved  before  sociology  started  to  treat  these  domains 
as  subjected  to  its  own  order.  Under  the  influence  of  the 
empirical  current  predominating  in  intellectual  Hfe  during  the 
past  half  of  a  century,  the  consciousness  that  the  sociological 
order  could  be  extended  to  fields  in  which  up  to  then  an  ideal 
order  was  assumed  and  that  this  extension  yielded  unex- 
pected and  interesting  discoveries,  resulted  in  the  wide- 
spread belief  that  there  was  a  new  and  better  method  to  be 
substituted  for  the  old  within  political  science,  economic 
science,  theory  of  knowledge,  theory  of  art,  etc.;  whereas 
this  extension  meant  that  concrete  empirical  phenomena 
which  were  already  the  object-matter  of  these  older  sciences 
could  be  made  also,  when  differently  defined  and  taken  in  a 


THEORETIC  ORDERS  OF  REALITY  303 

different  connection,  the  object-matter  of  a  new  science,  so- 
ciology, without  ceasing  to  be  treated  as  realizing  an  ideal, 
non-sociological  order. 

The  difference  between  the  two  orders  becomes  immedi- 
ately clear  when  we  begin  to  analyze  sociologically  the  compo- 
sition or  the  becoming  of  any  one  of  these  cultural  systems 
of  objects.  For,  if  we  isolate  the  various  schemes  which  con- 
stitute a  given  political,  religious,  economic,  or  other  system 
and  study  each  of  them  separately  with  regard  to  the  definition 
which  it  gives  to  personal  situations,  we  shall  find  a  great 
variety  between  the  schemes  in  one  system,  which  makes  it 
evident  that  it  is  not  any  particular  similarity  which  brought 
them  together.  Thus,  a  political  system  may  include  not 
only  many  dissimilar  schemes  of  legislation,  jurisdiction, 
and  execution,  often  incorporated  from  completely  different 
political  groups,  but  also  schemes  of  economic  organization 
(governmental  business  enterprises) ,  of  intellectual  and  moral 
education  (school  control  and  press  censorship),  of  religious 
institutions  (state  religion),  etc.,  which  cannot  be  classed  as 
poHtical  by  themselves  but  assume  a  political  form  only  in 
so  far  as  and  because  incorporated  into  the  state  system. 
Similarly,  a  reHgious  system  may  not  only  contain  religious 
beliefs  and  rites  of  the  most  heterogeneous  character,  but  also 
include  schemes  by  which  it  tends  to  control  morality,  art, 
science,  politics,  economics,  etc.,  and  which  have  a  religious 
sanction  only  because  subordinated  to  a  religious  dogma,  as 
schemes  whose  permanent  realization  is  claimed  as  necessary 
for  the  maintenance  of  the  whole  religious  system  in  historical 
reality.  In  short,  when  we  construct  a  classificatory  order  of 
schemes  as  we  do  in  social  statics,  this  order  will  cut  across 
all  the  existing  dogmatic  systems  of  schemes,  will  put  into  one 
class  schemes  belonging  to  different  systems  and  into  different 
classes  schemes  belonging  to  the  same  system.  From  this 
standpoint  the  coexistence  of  certain  schemes  rather  than 
others   in   a   given   political,  rehgious,  economic,  dogmatic 


304  CULTURAL  REALITY 

system  will  seem  as  equally  "accidental,"  equally  matter- 
of-fact,  as  the  coexistence  of  certain  schemes  in  the  sphere  of 
social  culture  of  an  individual  or  a  group.  The  static  socio- 
logical order  cannot  account  for  the  rational  connection  of 
schemes  in  a  dogmatic  system;  and  the  dynamic  sociological 
order,  on  the  other  hand,  cannot  account  for  the  exclusion 
of  schemes  which  make  at  each  moment  of  its  existence  the 
dogmatic  system  rationally  exhaustible.  For,  from  the 
standpoint  of  social  causality,  each  of  the  schemes  included 
in  a  political,  rehgious,  economic  system  appears  as  dynami- 
cally connected  with  schemes  which  are  completely  outside 
of  political,  religious,  economic  hfe,  as  influencing  them  and 
influenced  by  them,  so  that  a  causal  explanation  of  the  social 
origin  or  disappearance  of  any  of  these  systems  or  an  adequate 
account  of  all  the  social  consequences  of  its  existence,  its 
development,  or  its  decay  would  require  practically  a  dynamic 
synthesis  of  the  entire  social  life  of  the  group  within  which  it 
is  realized. 

The  rational  theoretic  order  based  on  the  existence  of 
dogmatic  systems  of  schemes  must  be  therefore  entirely 
different  from  that  which  sociology  postulates.  Its  nature 
will  be  best  understood  if  we  remember,  first,  that  the  dog- 
matic system  manifests  a  tendency  of  active  thought  to 
subordinate  reaHty  completely  to  ideal  demands,  to  control 
it  independently  of  pre-existing  real  conditions.  Secondly, 
we  know  that  the  dogmatic  system  is  the  highest  type  of 
practical  organization  of  reaHty  and,  unless  it  is  a  part 
of  another  dogmatic  system,  is  never  practically  conditioned 
by  any  other  real  organization.  Therefore,  while  the  physical 
object  draws  its  determination  from  the  situation,  while  the 
psychological  situation  is  stable  and  uniform  as  a  result  of 
the  scheme,  while  the  continuity  and  generality  of  self- 
identical  schemes  in  social  life  presupposes  that  these  schemes 
are  determined  by  dogmas,  the  determination  of  the  dogma  is 
purely  ideal;    whatever  rational  perfection  it  possesses  is 


THEORETIC  ORDERS  OF  REALITY  305 

directly  derived  from  the  logical  systematization  of  the 
activity  which  constructs  it  and  not  from  any  superior 
systematization  of  reality.  For  these  two  reasons  we  call 
the  theoretic  order  based  upon  dogmatic  systems  the  ideal 
order  of  reaHty. 

The  ideal  ground  of  this  order  manifests  itself  in  the 
methodological  presuppositions  made  by  the  sciences  which 
construct  it.  A  scientific  study  of  dogmatic  systems  must,  of 
course,  postulate  a  perfect  rationality  of  its  object-matter, 
like  every  branch  of  knowledge  which  tends  to  realize  the 
rationalistic  theoretic  ideal.  And  since  it  is  evident  that  no 
dogmatic  systems  found  in  empirical  reality  are  ever  absolutely 
perfect,  any  more  than  other  types  of  practical  organization, 
a  science  which  studies  these  systems  must  first  of  all  idealize 
them,  reconstruct  them  analytically  as  if  they  were  perfect. 
Now,  in  view  of  the  fact  that  their  organization  tends  to  be 
entirely  independent  of  pre-existing  reaHty,  and  approaches 
perfection  in  the  very  measure  in  which  it  succeeds  in  con- 
trolHng  reaHty  completely,  in  subordinating  it  uncondition- 
ally to  the  demands  of  thought,  a  perfect  dogmatic  system 
would  be  one  constructed  by  thought  absolutely  freely 
on  the  ground  of  an  accepted  dogma,  without  any  regard  to 
the  given  real  conditions.  Therefore  a  science  which  postu- 
lates an  absolute  rationaHty  of  the  order  based  on  dogmatic 
systems  must  assrnne  that  the  rational  organization  of  every 
system  which  it  meets  in  experience  possesses  and  manifests 
a  perfect  rational  essence,  follows  with  an  ideal  necessity 
from  the  dogma  which  it  is  based  upon  quite  independent 
of  the  empirical  conditions  in  which  it  is  reaHzed.  Given, 
therefore,  a  certain  practical  dogma  and  a  certain  field  of 
reaHty  to  control,  the  theorist  can  construct  a  priori  a  perfect 
system  of  schemes  for  the  control  of  this  reaHty  and  assume 
that,  if  these  schemes  were  fully  reaHzed,  the  given  field  of 
reaHty  would  be  fully  controlled  in  accordance  with  the 
demands  of  the  dogma.     Of  course,  these  schemes  may  as  a 


3o6  CULTURAL  REALITY 

matter  of  fact  never  be  realized  practically,  because  active 
thought  may  be  unable  so  to  organize  as  to  overcome  the 
obstacles  which  the  reality  to  be  controlled  puts  in  the  way 
of  their  reahzation;  but  this  empirical  lack  of  realization 
does  not  impair  the  intrinsic  perfection  of  the  rational  essence 
of  the  system  as  constructed  by  the  theorist. 

Given  a  certain  constitution  and  a  reality — a  social 
group — to  be  politically  controlled,  the  political  scientist 
can  construct  theoretically  a  perfect  state  system  in  which 
every  scheme  is  rationally  founded  upon  the  constitution 
and  which  thus  represents  the  rational  essence  of  a  state 
possessing  such  a  constitution.  The  problem  of  the  actual 
realization  of  each  scheme  in  particular  and  of  the  system 
as  a  whole  is  completely  different  and  has  nothing  to  do  with 
this  problem  of  rational  essence;  on  the  ground  of  the  latter 
the  political  scientist  can  say  only  that  if,  by  whatever 
concrete  empirical  organization  of  human  activities,  all  the 
schemes  rationally  demanded  by  the  constitution  are  ever 
realized,  the  social  group  will  be  completely  controlled  in  its 
political  life  in  accordance  with  the  constitution.  Similarly, 
given  a  certain  scientific  or  philosophical  principle  and  a 
domain  of  empirically  founded  knowledge  to  be  controlled 
by  theoretic  systematization,  the  theorist  of  knowledge  can 
construct  a  rationally  perfect  scientific  or  philosophical  system 
of  concepts  which  will  represent  the  rational  essence  of  a 
theory  based  upon  this  principle.  It  will  then  be  a  com- 
pletely different  problem  whether  such  a  system  of  concepts 
is  realizable  in  fact,  whether  in  view  of  the  already  realized 
and  fixed  body  of  knowledge  it  is  practically  possible  to  give 
old  ideas  such  interpretations  or  to  produce  by  observation 
such  new  ideas  as  will  give  to  the  system  the  empirical  foun- 
dation which  it  requires.  But  suppose  this  is  done,  the  given 
domain  of  knowledge  will  be  completely  controlled  from  the 
standpoint  of  the  given  principle.  In  another  field  again, 
on  the  ground  of  the  dogmas  accepted  by  the  classical  or  by 


THEORETIC  ORDERS  OF  REALITY  307 

the  materialistic  schools  of  economy  and  of  an  economic 
reality  to  be  controlled  by  these  dogmas,  economists  build 
rationally  perfect  systems  of  schemes  which,  if  neither  of  them 
expresses  the  rational  essence  of  economic  hfe  in  general, 
correspond  at  least  essentially  to  some  empirical  dogmatic 
systems  among  all  those  which  can  be  found  in  the  concrete 
complexity  of  economic  organization.  Again  from  the  purely 
rational  standpoint  it  does  not  matter  whether  the  classical 
or  the  materialistic  or  any  other  economic  system  will  ever 
be  completely  and  adequately  realized  in  the  empirical 
world;  this  depends  on  the  question  whether  our  activity 
will  be  able  to  realize  all  the  conditions  necessary  for  the 
continuous  actuahzation  of  the  schemes  demanded  by  the 
dogma. 

The  poHtical  scientist,  the  economist,  the  theorist  of  art, 
of  reHgion,  even  the  theorist  of  knowledge  usually  claims  that 
in  constructing  a  perfectly  rational  system  he  follows  empirical 
data  and  does  not  act  a  priori.  This  claim  is,  of  course, 
in  some  measure  justified.  First,  the  scientist  usually  does 
not  attempt  to  construct  rational  essences  or  political,  eco- 
nomic, aesthetic,  theoretic,  moral,  rehgious  systems  which  are 
not  at  least  partially  realized  in  the  empirical  world,  and  thus 
he  limits  the  field  of  his  theory  to  the  historically  given  prac- 
tical organizations;  though  this  limitation  is  not  general  and 
the  theorist,  under  the  influence  of  practical  considerations, 
often  intentionally  transgresses  past  and  present  empirical 
reahty  and  builds  non-existing  systems  in  the  expectation 
that  these  will  be  reaHzed  in  the  future,  still  this  is  not  con- 
sidered a  properly  scientific  activity.  Furthermore,  in  order  to 
construct  the  rational  essence  of  any  system,  the  scientist  must 
be  acquainted  with  the  practical  activities  to  which  the  organi- 
zation of  empirical  systems  of  this  type  is  due  and  with  the 
reahty  upon  which  these  activities  bear.  He  cannot  construct 
a  political  system,  a  moral  system,  a  religious  system,  an 
•aesthetic  system,  by  theoretic  reflection  alone,  for  the  rational 


3o8  CULTURAL  REALITY 

organization  which  theoretic  reflection  creates  in  reality  is  not 
the  same  as  the  rational  organizations  which  political,  moral, 
religious,  aesthetic  activities  create.  He  must  practically 
realize  what  political,  moral,  religious,  aesthetic  activities  are; 
that  is,  he  must  be  able  to  reproduce  these  activities  mentally, 
though  not  instrumentally.  It  is  precisely  because,  and  only 
because,  these  activities  can  be  reproduced,  or  produced, 
mentally  that  he  can  substitute  for  his  scientific  purposes  a 
rationally  perfect  dogmatic  practical  system  for  those  ration- 
ally imperfect  ones  which  are  instrumentally  realized  in  the 
historical  world.  The  actual  subject-matter  of  his  science 
is  not  the  empirically  given  and  fully  real  system  which  has 
been  or  is  being  constructed  by  others  with  the  help  of  instru- 
mental activities,  but  a  model  system  of  the  same  t3^e  which 
he  practically  constructs  himself  with  the  help  of  activities 
of  the  same  class,  only  mental.  Mentally  performed  political, 
economic,  moral,  aesthetic  activities  do  not  meet  such  ob- 
stacles in  the  pre-existing  reality  as  instrumental  activities 
do,  and  therefore  a  mentally  constructed  dogmatic  system  of 
schemes  can  be  at  once  rationally  perfect  and  can  serve  as 
material  for  the  theoretic  determination  of  the  rational  essence 
of  systems  of  this  type.  Such  a  mentally  constructed  prac- 
tical system  corresponds,  in  sciences  of  ideally  ordered  reality, 
to  the  experiment  in  physical  science;  it  is  an  artificially 
created  model  of  perfect  rationality. 

When  a  political  scientist  determines  the  rational  essence 
of  an  absolute  monarchy  or  of  a  democratic  republic,  he  per- 
forms a  double  activity:  first,  he  performs  practically,  though 
only  mentally,  all  the  activities  which  a  poHtical  sovereign 
would  have  to  reproduce  instrumentally  in  organizing  a  state 
in  accordance  with  a  certain  constitution;  secondly,  as  a 
theorist,  he  reconstructs  this  mental  organization  scientifically, 
using  this  time  all  the  materials  and  instruments  necessary 
to  produce  a  fully  objective  and  rational  system  of  ideas. 
The  problem  of  the  empirical  bearing  of  a  science  of  the  ideal 


THEORETIC  ORDERS  OF  REALITY  309 

order  is  not  how  a  dogmatic  organization  existing  in  the  empiri- 
cal world  can  be  theoretically  reconstructed  in  general; 
we  know  that  it  can  be  in  so  far  as  its  schemes  are  practically 
limited  in  their  number  and  complexity;  but  the  question  is, 
"How  can  all  the  existing  practical  organizations  of  a  certain 
class  be  theoretically  systematized?"  And  this  depends  on 
the  question  of  how  far  such  political,  economic,  aesthetic,  or 
religious  systems,  serving  as  basis  for  the  theoretic  recon- 
struction of  rational  essences,  actually  correspond  to  the 
instrumentally  realized  political,  economic,  aesthetic,  or  re- 
ligious systems.  Since  every  science  tries  to  reconcile 
rationality  with  concreteness,  to  reach  a  theoretic  system- 
atization  as  perfect  as  the  reahty  upon  which  it  bears  permits, 
and  to  keep  as  closely  in  touch  with  empirical  reality  as  its 
rationalistic  ideal  allows,  the  normal  tendency  of  poHtical 
science,  of  economics,  of  theory  of  art,  of  theory  of  religion, 
will  be  on  the  one  hand  to  construct  such  model  systems  as 
would  correspond  each  to  as  many  as  possible  empirical 
organizations;  and  on  the  other  hand  to  take  as  far  as  possible 
into  consideration  and  to  explain  rationally  the  deviations 
which  each  of  these  empirical  organizations  present  as  com- 
pared with  the  model  system  which  is  assumed  to  express  their 
rational  essence. 

The  first  tendency  leads  to  a  hierarchical  classification  of 
rational  essences  with  regard  to  the  generality  of  their  empiri- 
cal appHcation:  for  example,  the  rational  essence  formulated 
in  the  concept  "state"  has  a  wider  field  of  application  than 
those  expressed  by  the  terms  "absolute  monarchy,"  "con- 
stitutional monarchy,"  "republic."  The  general  scientific  con- 
cepts reached  in  this  domain  are  those  which  serve  as  ground  for 
separating  the  sciences  of  cultural  systems  from  one  another. 
Thus,  at  the  basis  of  the  separation  between  the  political 
and  economic  sciences  lies  the  assumption  that  there  is  a  com- 
mon rational  essence  of  all  political  systems  and  a  different 
common  rational  essence  of  all  economic  systems.     Neither 


3IO  CULTURAL  REALITY 

of  these  rational  essences  can  be  reduced  to  the  other,  and  thus 
all  efforts  to  reduce  the  political  to  the  economic,  Hke  the  one 
which  historical  materialism  has  tried,  are  rooted  in  a  mis- 
understanding. Of  course,  in  the  concrete  social  Hfe  of  a 
group  we  can  find  innumerable  relations  of  partial  dependence 
between  particular  pohtical  and  particular  economic  schemes, 
and  vice  versa;  but  the  study  of  these  relations  is  the  task  of 
sociology,  not  of  political  or  economic  science,  and  involves, 
as  we  have  already  seen,  an  isolation  of  the  schemes  thus 
connected  by  social  causality  from  the  several  different  sys- 
tems in  which  they  are  connected  with  other  schemes  by  a 
rational  determination  for  the  fulfilment  of  the  demands  of 
the  respective  dogmas.  Since  the  fundamental  difference 
between  the  sciences  of  the  ideal  order  of  reality  and  sociology 
is  that  the  object-matter  of  the  former  is  the  dogmatic  organi- 
zation of  schemes  which  the  latter  ignores,  by  treating  schemes 
of  rationally  different  systems  as  causally  dependent  on  one 
another  and  thus  dissolving  the  systems  we  simply  substi- 
tute sociology  for  political  or  economic  science. 

With  regard  to  the  deviations  of  empirical  systems  from 
their  rational  essence,  sciences  of  the  ideal  order  began 
first  by  assuming  generally  that,  since  all  rationality  of  these 
systems  comes  from  the  logical  order  of  thought,  all  break 
of  rational  order  comes  from  the  irrational  empirical  reality 
and  therefore  cannot  be  rationally  explained.  This  is  the 
stand  taken  by  ancient  science.  But  modern  science  in  its 
effort  to  reconcile  concreteness  with  rationality  can  no  longer 
be  satisfied  with  such  a  summary  solution.  The  latter  is, 
moreover,  in  disaccordance  with  the  very  principle  of  the  ideal 
order  which  is  not  supposed  to  be  dependent  on  real  conditions. 
In  the  very  measure  in  which  we  assume  that  active  thought 
is  able  completely  to  control  reality,  we  cannot  admit  that  the 
latter  puts  in  the  way  of  dogmatically  determined  systems 
obstacles  which  active  thought  is  entirely  unable  to  overcome. 
From  the  standpoint  of  the  ideal  order,  the  imperfect  realiza- 


THEORETIC  ORDERS  OF  REALITY  311 

tion  of  a  rational  essence  in  an  empirical  system  of  schemes 
must  be  taken  to  be  the  result  of  an  incomplete  formal 
organization  of  the  activities  whose  task  it  is  to  realize 
this  essence  within  the  given  sphere  of  reality,  not  as  the  result 
of  insuperable  material  hindrances.  However,  the  sciences 
of  the  ideal  order  cannot  study  the  absolute  origin  of  this 
order  in  creative  activity;  just  like  all  other  sciences,  they 
must  assume  the  order  on  which  their  investigation  bears 
as  existing  and  ready  before  it  becomes  the  object-matter  of 
theoretic  reflection,  even  if  it  should  be  only  mentally  realized 
by  the  scientist  himself,  for  the  existence  of  this  order  is  the 
very  foundation  of  theoretic  rationalization.  An  attempt  to 
explain  by  the  nature  of  active  thought  why  the  latter  suc- 
ceeded or  did  not  succeed  in  organizing  a  system  perfectly 
would  lead  to  the  whole  problem  of  the  logical  order  of  activi- 
ties, which  is  beyond  the  reach  of  any  science  of  reahty.  And 
since  there  is  no  higher  organization  of  reality  by  which  its  dog- 
matic organization  is  determined  and  explicable,  the  sciences 
dealing  with  dogmatic  systems  cannot  be  supplemented  by 
any  other  sciences  of  reality  and  have  thus  to  rely  exclu- 
sively on  the  ideal  order  itself  to  explain  the  imperfections 
of  this  very  order. 

This  means  that  of  the  two  principles  with  the  help  of 
which  theoretic  reflection  tries  to  reconcile  concreteness  with 
rationality,  the  principle  of  approximation  and  that  of  inter- 
ference, the  sciences  of  the  ideal  order  have  to  reject  entirely 
the  first  and  give  to  the  second  a  form  and  development  which 
it  does  not  possess  in  any  other  branch  of  knowledge.  These 
sciences  cannot  admit  that  the  rational  essence  of  a  dogmatic 
system  may  be  realized  only  approximately  or  that  for  any 
reasons  such  a  system  may  fail  in  attaining  perfect  rationahty; 
but  they  must  assume  that  any  number  of  dogmatic  systems 
of  a  similar  or  different  type  may  coexist,  each  perfectly 
developed,  in  a  given  section  of  the  cultural  world.  And  thus, 
if  in  the  political  organization  of  a  group  we  do  not  find 


312  CULTURAL  REALITY 

some  of  the  schemes  realized  which  the  constitution  demands, 
if  a  system  of  science  or  philosophy  which  we  are  studying 
seems  to  lack  some  of  the  concepts  required  for  the  full 
theoretic  application  of  its  fundamental  principles,  if  an 
empirical  economic  system  does  not  show  in  practice  all  the 
schemes  necessary  for  the  realization  of  the  dogma,  we  must 
assume  nevertheless  that  these  schemes  do  exist  and  that  if  we 
do  not  find  them  in  observation,  it  is  because  they  have  not 
reached  the  same  degree  of  realness  as  those  which  we  do 
observe.  We  must  imphcitly  suppose  that  the  political 
schemes  which,  though  required  by  the  constitution,  are  not 
manifestly  reahzed  in  the  group,  nevertheless  already  exist 
within  the  total  sphere  of  civilization  of  this  group.  We 
must  implicitly  assume  that  the  concepts  which,  though 
demanded  by  the  principles  of  a  philosophic  or  scientific 
system,  are  not  formulated  in  words,  nevertheless  already 
exist  in  the  domain  of  knowledge;  that  the  economic 
schemes  rationally  necessary  for  the  perfection  of  an  economic 
organization  are  already  there  in  economic  Hfe,  though  we 
cannot  find  them.  Such  assumptions  are  implied  in  the  very 
fact  of  treating  an  empirical  system  as  identical  with  the 
ideal  system  theoretically  reconstructed  by  the  scientist, 
though  they  do  not  involve,  of  course,  any  positive  suppo- 
sition as  to  where  and  when  the  schemes  whose  existence 
we  postulate  have  been  reahzed.  Sometimes,  indeed,  such 
an  implicit  assumption  becomes  the  starting-point  of  a  re- 
search, and  we  often  find  in  fact  that  the  political  schemes 
which  at  first  glance  seem  to  be  lacking  really  exist  in  the 
political  practice  of  the  group  or  of  some  of  its  members, 
though  they  are  not  formulated;  that  the  concepts  which 
are  not  expressed  in  the  works  of  the  scientist  or  the  philoso- 
pher have  been  in  fact  constructed  by  him,  though  not  made 
public;  that  an  apparently  incomplete  business  organization 
already  includes  a  plan  for  more  complete  development. 
In  other  cases,  the  theoretic  reconstruction  of  a  system  as 


THEORETIC  ORDERS  OF  REALITY  313 

rationally  perfect  becomes  the  starting-point  of  a  practical 
activity  which  will  reahze  in  the  empirical  system  the  schemes 
that  seem  to  be  lacking  and  will  thus  make  it  express  fully  its 
rational  essence;  the  study  of  the  political  organization  of  a 
country  gives  the  initiative  for  new  laws,  and  the  critical 
analysis  of  a  scientific  system  starts  new  observations.  But 
from  the  purely  formal  rational  standpoint  such  questions 
have  a  secondary  importance:  for  the  rational  perfection  of 
the  system  it  does  not  matter  by  whom  and  under  what 
conditions  its  schemes  have  been  brought  into  existence  nor 
how  much  reality  they  possess,  provided  they  exist  already — 
and  they  certainly  do  exist  at  least  mentally  at  the  moment 
when  the  theorist  begins  to  investigate  them. 

On  the  other  hand,  if  in  a  given  domain  of  cultural  reality 
we  find  together  with  schemes  necessary  for  a  dogmatic  system 
other  schemes  which  do  not  belong  to  it  rationally,  we  must 
assume  that  there  is  another  system  existing  in  this  domain 
with  more  or  less  realness,  and  that  these  superfluous  schemes 
are  a  part  of  it.  This  is  a  very  frequent  case.  In  every 
social  group  we  find  several  different  political,  economic, 
religious  systems  existing  together,  and  our  task  is  then  to 
separate  them  and  to  reconstruct  each  in  its  rational  perfec- 
tion. We  have  consciously  attempted  to  do  it  elsewhere;^ 
more  or  less  clear  illustrations  of  this  method  can  be  found 
in  many  historical  monographs. 

Following  these  two  postulates  in  which  the  principle 
of  interference  expresses  itself  in  the  sciences  of  the  ideal 
order — the  postulate  that  in  each  empirical  system  its  total 
rational  essence  exists,  though  not  always  with  the  same  degree 
of  realness,  and  the  postulate  that  each  scheme  which  does  not 
belong  to  a  given  system  must  belong  to  another — every 
science  of  the  ideal  order  can  approach  a  complete  theoretic 
exhaustion  and  systematization  of  its  field.     These  sciences 

'W.  I.  Thomas  and  Florian  Znaniecki,  The  Polish  Peasant,  Vol.  I,  Intro- 
duction, particularly  studies  on  religion  and  on  economic  life. 


314  CULTURAL  REALITY 

are  the  only  ones  which  find  in  their  way  no  empirical  real 
concreteness  necessary  and  yet  essentially  impossible  to  over- 
come, since  their  object-matter  is  originally  as  much  rational- 
ized as  practical  reality  can  be,  and  their  method,  by  ignoring 
the  degree  of  realness  which  their  order  possesses,  leaves  to 
them  only  such  irrationality  to  deal  with  as  comes  not  from 
the  pre-existing  real  chaos,  but  from  the  imperfect  organiza- 
tion of  activity. 

But  it  is  evident  that  there  can  be  only  a  static,  not  a 
dynamic,  ideal  order  of  reahty,  since  the  ultimate  factor  of  all 
evolution  here  is  active  thought,  and  therefore  no  order  of 
reality,  however  highly  ideaHzed,  can  explain  it.  There  is 
no  possible  scientific  theory  of  the  evolution  of  poHtical 
organization,  of  morality,  of  economics,  of  knowledge,  of 
religion,  of  art,  of  technique.  Science  can  follow  the  succes- 
sion of  different  systems  in  history;  it  can  dissolve  these  sys- 
tems and  explain  sociologically  the  origin  of  each  scheme 
composing  them;  but  a  dogmatic  system  in  the  intrinsic 
essence  of  its  organization  is  for  science  a  rationally  analyzable 
but  genetically  inexplicable  datum,  whose  source  lies  beyond 
the  reach  of  science,  in  creative  activity. 

THE  PROBLEM  OF  THE  UNITY  OF  KNOWLEDGE 

The  rationalistic  ideal  of  knowledge,  when  applied  to 
reality  in  so  far  as  already  in  some  measure  practically 
organized,  finds,  as  we  see,  a  double  limitation.  First,  none 
of  the  general  presuppositions  by  which  philosophy  tries  to 
determine  once  and  forever  the  essential  character  of  objects 
and  their  connections,  by  quahfying  them  as  physical,  or 
psychological,  or  sociological,  or  elements  of  ideal  systems, 
are  anything  more  than  methodological  assumptions,  objec- 
tively justified  by  being  approximately  realized  within  cer- 
tain practical  systems  and  apt  to  be  theoretically  postulated 
beyond  these  systems,  but  unable  to  become  ontological 
truths  about  reahty  in  general.     This  means  that  there  can 


THEORETIC  ORDERS  OF  REALITY  315 

be  no  systematic  philosophical  theory  of  reality  as  of  a  rational 
whole — beyond,  of  course,  a  mere  study  of  the  forms  which 
reality  acquires  as  object-matter  of  practice  and  of  knowledge, 
Hke  the  study  we  have  attempted  here.  Even  the  possibility 
of  our  present  study,  as  we  shall  see  in  another  work,  is  ulti- 
mately due  to  the  fact  that  all  forms  of  reality,  even  though 
entirely  different  from  the  forms  of  active  thought,  are  directly 
or  indirectly  derived  from  them.  All  that  can  be  done  by 
theoretic  reflection  about  reality  is  to  reconstruct  rationally, 
on  the  ground  of  certain  methodological  presuppositions, 
fragment  after  fragment  of  the  empirical  world,  thus  approach- 
ing indefinitely  to  the  ideal  Hmit  of  its  complete  theoretic 
exhaustion.  And  even  if  this  Hmit  were  ever  attained, 
still  there  would  be  no  place  for  a  philosophical  ontology 
based  on  the  general  nature  of  reahty  besides  the  sciences 
based  on  the  particular  empirical  phenomena.  For,  when 
gradually  reconstructing  reality  scientifically  on  the  assump- 
tion of  a  certain  formal  order,  we  unify  indeed  disconnected 
fragments  into  one  rational  system  and  thus  generalize  this 
order;  but  the  unity  of  the  system  is  directly  and  in  itself  a 
unity  of  knowledge,  not  of  reahty,  and  becomes  a  unity  of 
reality  only  as  a  dynamic  connection  superimposed  upon 
the  disconnected  practical  world  when  the  ideas  constituting 
the  theoretic  system  are  actuahzed  as  thoughts  in  appHcation 
to  reahty. 

A  rational  order,  by  being  generalized  by  science,  does  not 
become  one  inherent  order  of  reahty  absolutely  imposing 
itself  upon  our  thought;  it  exists  only  as  a  set  of  innumer- 
able particular  suggestions  offered  by  objects,  beside  other 
suggestions,  as  a  plurahty  of  specific  meaning  which  in 
each  particular  case  thought  is  free  to  follow  or  not,  and  which 
it  regularly  follows  only  when  logically  determined  by  the 
system  of  knowledge  which  has  created  those  meanings, 
when  applying  again  in  actuality  this  system  to  its  original 
object-matter.    Therefore  the  methodological  presuppositions 


3i6  CULTURAL  REALITY 

with  the  help  of  which  we  construct  our  theoretic  system  never 
can  become  ontological  truths  bearing  upon  the  entire  reality- 
covered  by  this  system;  they  remain  methodological  for- 
ever, they  serve  to  "rediscover"  rational  determinations  of 
empirical  reality  every  time  the  ready  system  is  actualized 
by  being  appHed  to  experience,  just  as  they  served  to  "dis- 
cover" them  when  the  system  was  first  constructed.  The 
specifically  "theoretic"  suggestions  which  the  objects  offer 
— their  suggestions  to  be  taken  in  accordance  with  their 
scientific  determination — may  grow  more  and  more  powerful 
v/ith  every  appHcation  of  the  system ;  but  the  theoretic  order  is 
always  actually  being  extended  only  to  particular  objects 
or  groups  of  objects  and  for  particular  purposes,  never  actually 
apphed  to  all  objects  at  once,  in  general  and  absolutely, 
independently  of  specific  theoretic  or  practical  problems. 

This  first  limitation  of  the  theoretic  ideal  should  not 
be  taken  in  the  Kantian  sense.  It  is  not  merely  the  Kantian 
world  of  things-in-themselves,  but  also  the  very  world  which 
Kant  quaUfied  as  phenomenal  and  which  philosophy  was 
supposed  to  master  in  the  very  essence  of  its  order,  which 
is  in  fact  inaccessible  to  philosophical  reconstruction — for 
the  "forms  a  priori"  which  theoretic  reason  imposes  upon  it 
are  not  in  fact  necessary  forms  of  our  "phenomenal"  reality, 
are  not  transcendental  conditions  with  which  experience 
must  conform.  What  makes  precisely  all  attempts  of  philos- 
ophy to  construct  an  absolute  theory  of  empirical  reality 
hopeless  is  that  any  forms  of  reality  which  it  may  find  assumed 
in  scientific  research  are  partly  objectively  reaHzed  before 
science  and  partly  not,  and  that  science  by  postulating  their 
perfect  reaHzation  imposes  nothing  upon  reality  absolutely 
and  unconditionally,  but  only  gives  to  itself  the  task  of  trying 
step  by  step  to  superimpose  upon  the  imperfect  real  order  a 
more  perfect  one.  These  forms  are  not  in  any  sense  the 
necessary  conditions  of  experience,  or  even  of  organized 
experience,  for  concrete  experience  lacks  them  and  practically 


THEORETIC  ORDERS  OF  REALITY  317 

organized  experience  never  perfectly  realizes  them.  If  they 
are  now  the  universally  used  methodical  assumptions  of  our 
science,  it  is  because  our  science  in  its  historical  develop- 
ment has  not  only  accepted  the  general  ideal  of  rationality, 
but  also  the  specific  tendency  to  advance  toward  this  ideal  by 
the  way  of  extending  and  perfecting  in  its  own  systems  the 
pre-existing  practical  organization  of  reality,  instead  of  taking 
some  other,  logically  equally  possible  way.  Perhaps  an  ade- 
quate history  of  science  would  even  show  that  it  has  often 
tried  in  the  past  to  branch  off  into  different  hnes.  Now  it 
is  so  stabilized  in  its  fundamental  tendencies  that  for  a  long 
time  there  is  scarcely  any  possibility  of  its  changing  its  method- 
ological ground;  and  if  it  changed  this,  it  would  no  longer  be 
science  in  the  historically  accepted  sense  of  the  term. 

But  the  very  fact  that  the  forms  which  science  uses  as 
its  methodological  presuppositions  are  neither  the  necessary 
forms  of  experience  nor  those  of  knowledge,  and  are  only 
imperfectly  reahzed  in  practice,  gives  a  significance  to  the 
future  progress  of  science  which  it  could  not  possess  under  the 
Kantian  conception.  For,  if  historically  developing  science 
were  only  getting  from  reality  the  order  which  non-historical 
absolute  reason  had  for  all  time  put  into  reahty,  what  would 
be  the  objective  importance  of  such  work?  Whereas  by 
actually  superadding  to  the  imperfect  rationality  of  reality  a 
growingly  perfect  one,  science  performs  a  creative  function 
which  has  an  objective  significance  even  apart  from  its  practi- 
cal applications,  by  introducing  something  new  into  the  world. 

But  even  the  ideal  limits  toward  which  scientific  progress 
tends  lack,  as  we  have  seen  in  the  preceding  sections,  that 
absolute  perfection  of  rationality  which  philosophy  used  to 
require  by  beHeving  in  one  theoretic  system  of  reahty.  Not 
only  is  it  true  that  reahty  cannot  be  exhausted  in  one  theoretic 
system  now,  but  it  never  will  be,  even  if  all  its  fragments  and 
aspects  ever  should  become  completely  rationalized  theoreti- 
cally in  particular  scientific  researches.     For  the  results  of 


3i8  CULTURAL  REALITY 

scientific  activity,  by  the  very  nature  of  the  methodological 
assumptions  which  determine  the  ways  of  stating  and  solving 
scientific  problems,  can  under  no  condition  be  unified  into  one 
system  of  knowledge.  We  have  followed  the  division  of 
scientific  fields  as  it  has  actually  developed  in  history  and 
we  have  found  that,  when  science  takes  as  fundamental  the 
physical  order  of  reahty,  that  is,  an  order  based  exclusively 
on  the  perfect  practical  form  of  objects  and  connections  but 
ignoring  the  practical  organizations  within  which  they  receive 
this  form,  it  must  add  to  this  order  three  other  entirely 
incommensurable,  though  supplementary,  orders,  built  with 
entirely  different  methodological  presuppositions,  so  that 
reality  presents  four  different  rational  aspects  based  upon  the 
fundamental  forms  of  different  stages  of  practical  organiza- 
tion:  the  thing,  the  situation,  the  scheme,  the  dogma. 

Suppose  now  that,  by  some  radical  modification  of  the 
entire  body  of  our  scientific  knowledge,  science  should  ever 
accept  as  fundamental  not  the  physical  order  of  things,  but 
the  ideal  order  of  dogmatic  systems  corresponding  to  the 
highest  stage  of  practical  organization;  suppose  that  the 
sciences  of  cultural  instead  of  those  of  natural  reaUty  should 
constitute  the  rational  basis  of  our  theoretic  reflection.  Since 
the  dogmatic  system  contains  all  the  subordinate  stages  of 
practical  organization — schemes,  situations,  and  things — 
there  would  then  be  no  reason  for  supplementing  this  order 
by  the  social,  psychological,  and  physical  orders;  for  all  the 
social  schemes,  personal  situations,  physical  things,  and  pro- 
cesses would  find  place  and  rationalization  within  the  scope 
of  an  order  of  dogmatic  systems,  if  the  latter  were  not  reduced, 
as  they  must  be  now,  to  an  ideal  order  ignoring  pre-existing 
concrete  reality,  but  were  studied  in  all  the  details  of  their 
practical  development  in  the  historical  world.  A  full  knowl- 
edge of  cultural  reality  would  be  a  rational  knowledge  of 
entire  reahty  as  practically  determined,  and  yet,  even  then, 
scientific  unity  would  not  be  attainable.     For  on  the  ground 


THEORETIC  ORDERS  OF  REALITY  319 

of  cultural  reaKty  we  have  several  entirely  different  types 
of  rational  practical  systems,  such  as  theoretic,  aesthetic, 
moral,  religious,  political,  economic,  technical;  and  supposing 
even  that  each  of  these  types  should  be  theoretically  reduced 
to  a  perfect  rational  unity,  the  scientific  systems  constructed 
on  the  basis  of  these  different  types  would  still  remain  entirely 
separated  and  different  from  one  another.  And  since  each 
of  these  systems,  if  fully  developed,  would  extend  over  the 
entire  reality — for  it  is  clear  that  the  entire  reality  could  be 
viewed  from  the  theoretic,  the  aesthetic,  the  moral,  the 
rehgious,  the  technical  standpoint — we  would  have  still  as 
many  different  incommensurable  and  discoimected  theoretic 
aspects  of  reahty  as  there  are  theoretically  irreducible  types 
of  cultural  systems  of  schemes. 

Thus,  the  concept  of  a  theoretic  rationality  of  the  en- 
tire real  world,  even  if  taken  as  an  ideal  of  knowledge,  must 
reconcile  itself  with  a  pluralistic  interpretation  of  science; 
it  can  mean  only  that  if  the  ultimate  Hmit  of  scientific  develop- 
ment were  ever  attained,  every  fragment  or  aspect  of  reality 
would  be  scientifically  determined  by  some  rational  system  of 
ideas  built  from  the  standpoint  of  some  rational  order.  The 
concept  of  a  realistic  rational  monism,  of  one  theoretic  system 
embracing  all  empirical  reality,  is  not  even  an  ideal:  it  is  a 
chimera. 

There  is,  however,  one  imaginable  objection  against  this 
plurahstic  conclusion,  on  a  ground  which  has  already  been 
used  to  maintain  the  possibiHty  of  reconstructing  concrete 
reality,  at  least  in  its  most  important  features,  by  one  science. 
Does  not  the  hmitation  of  each  of  the  scientific  orders  out- 
lined above  come  from  the  very  fact  that  none  of  them  deals 
directly  with  the  original  concrete  world  of  historical  objects, 
but  with  one-sidedly  and  narrowly  determined,  isolated 
fragments  of  this  world — practically  organized  systems? 
And  is  there  not  one  prominent  branch  of  knowledge  whose 
object-matter  is  the  total  historical  reality  in  its  primary 


320  CULTURAL  REALITY 

empirical  concreteness  ?  Is  not  therefore  historical  knowledge, 
in  the  widest  sense  of  the  term,  the  one  and  the  only  knowledge 
which  can  reconstruct  theoretically  the  whole  reality  without 
any  distinction  of  abstract  and  incommensurable  orders? 
The  problem  is  very  interesting  indeed,  and  we  regret  not  to 
be  able  to  give  it  here  the  whole  attention  it  deserves,  but  to 
be  obHged  to  limit  ourselves  to  a  few  general  remarks. 

First  of  all,  there  can  be  a  question  here  only  of  a  history 
of  reality;  the  problem  of  a  history  of  activity  does  not 
bear  directly  upon  the  theoretic  reconstruction  of  reality  as  a 
whole.  Most  of  what  is  called  history  is  history  of  reality, 
cultural  and  natural.  Now,  it  is  clear  that  the  history  of 
reahty  does  not  work  upon  the  presupposition  of  any  general 
historical  rational  order,  distinct  from  the  special  physical, 
psychological,  sociological,  and  ideal  orders.  The  only 
presupposition  which  distinguishes  it  from  each  and  all  of 
these  special  sciences  is  that  in  concrete  historical  extension 
and  duration  some  or  all  of  these  orders  are  interconnected 
and  melted  in  a  general  creative  becoming,  in  a  continuous 
development  of  the  new  which  cannot  be  explained  on  the 
ground  of  any  definite  rational  order  and  can  be  only  approxi- 
mately reached  from  case  to  case,  as  an  imperfectly  account- 
able synthesis  of  several  orders.  Even  natural  history, 
already  limited  by  the  naturalistic  viewpoint  to  one  ab- 
stract side  of  historical  becoming,  cannot  work  within  its 
limits  on  the  assumption  of  one  historical  order  as  such, 
but  on  that  of  an  imperfectly  rationalizable  synthesis  of  the 
static  order  of  things  and  the  dynamic  order  of  processes. 
And  we  know  that  cultural  history  needs  all  of  the  scientific 
orders  together  to  reconstruct  any  past  historical  object  or 
set  of  historical  objects.  We  find  physical,  psychological, 
sociological,  ideal  presuppositions  at  work  in  every  historical 
investigation,  whether  its  task  is  the  biography  of  an  indi- 
vidual, or  the  history  of  a  group,  or  the  reconstruction  of 
any  past  concrete  domain  of  art,  religion,  literature,  science, 


THEORETIC  ORDERS  OF  REALITY  321 

etc.,  in  their  historical  connections  with  other  domains  of 
the  cultural  world. 

All  these  methodological  presuppositions  can  be  used 
in  two  entirely  different  manners,  depending  on  the  purpose 
of  historical  investigation.  Historical  reconstruction  of  the 
past  may  be  nothing  but  an  auxihary  activity  preparing  mate- 
rials for  other,  systematic,  sciences;  or  it  may  be  an  aim  in 
itself,  for  which  other  scientific  researches  with  their  specific 
methods  are  merely  auxiliary  activities  preparing  instruments. 
In  the  first  case  history  of  the  past  plays  the  same  role  as 
observation  of  the  present:  it  brings  within  the  range  of  the 
scientist  select  data  which  he  will  use  for  physical,  psycho- 
logical, sociological,  cultural,  generahzations.  Its  object  is  not 
reconstruction  of  historical  reality  in  its  empirical  concrete- 
ness,  but  selection  and  collection  of  such  abstractly  isolated 
fragments  of  reality  as  can  be  treated  from  the  standpoint  of  a 
certain  theoretic  order.  In  this  sense,  historical  investigation 
is  in  some  measure  a  part  of  almost  every  scientific  research, 
since  we  seldom  find  everything  we  need  to  construct  our 
theoretic  systems  within  the  immediate  reach  of  our  present 
practical  experience  and  must  rely  more  or  less  on  realities 
which  are  no  longer  practically  actual,  or  not  practically 
actual  within  our  part  of  concrete  extension,  so  that  we  must 
reproduce  them  indirectly,  "mentally,"  with  the  help  of  other 
experiences  or  testimonies  of  other  people.  There  is  nothing 
in  history  when  thus  used  which  would  justify  its  conception 
as  of  one  separate  and  independent  branch  of  intellectual 
activity.  A  psychological,  sociological,  political,  aesthetic, 
theory  based  partly  or  even  entirely  upon  the  reconstructed 
culture  of  past  peoples  does  not  belong  in  the  sphere  of 
"historical  science"  any  more  than  does  a  physical  or  astro- 
nomical theory  using  the  experiments  or  observations  made  a 
few  years  ago  by  a  scientist  who  since  died. 

History  as  separate  and  self-determined  pursuit  appears 
only  when  the  most  exact  possible  reproduction  of  historical 


322  CULTURAL  REALITY 

objects  as  such  becomes  its  fundamental  interest,  and  all  the 
methodological  presuppositions  and  theoretic  generalizations 
of  other  sciences  are  used  for  the  sole  purpose  of  obtaining 
with  their  help  the  most  adequate  possible  acquaintance 
with  the  past,  either  by  excluding  on  their  ground  supposi- 
tions about  the  past  which  would  not  fit  into  our  world  in  so 
far  as  already  determined  by  its  practical  organization  and 
in  some  measure  by  its  theoretic  orders,  or,  more  fruitfully, 
by  supplementing  with  their  help  such  insufficient  and  incom- 
plete data  as  can  be  directly  obtained  by  oral  or  written 
tradition.  But  history  in  this  sense  is  not  theoretic  recon- 
struction: it  is  creative  continuation  of  the  past  in  the  most 
emphatic  sense  of  the  term.  A  historical  work  is,  of  course, 
by  its  rational  form,  its  symboHc  expression,  its  material 
existence  as  a  book,  a  new  cultural  object.  But  the  ultimate 
significance  of  its  content,  of  the  subject-matter  of  historical 
thought,  is  not  to  be  an  aesthetic  picture  of  historical  reality 
as  opposed  to  the  reaHty  pictured,  but  that  reality  itself, 
brought  to  life  again  with  the  help  of  its  present  remnants  as 
materials  and  theoretic  ideas  as  instruments.  Without  this 
creative  revival,  without  this  conscious  reproduction,  past 
culture  would  after  a  time  disappear  completely  from  the 
sphere  of  our  experience;  it  would  lose  almost  entirely  its 
realness  without  being  exactly  annihilated.  Reproduced 
by  history,  historical  objects  reappear  in  our  experience 
with  a  new  real  influence,  become  actuahzed  again,  usually 
indeed — as  we  have  seen  in  a  previous  chapter — with  different 
connections,  in  different  complexes  and  systems,  often  much 
less  important  practically  than  they  used  to  be.  Sometimes, 
however,  they  become  even  more  important;  who  does 
not  know,  for  example,  how  much  more  social  influence  the 
social  personality  of  a  national  hero  or  of  a  religious  founder 
often  has  when  historically  reproduced  than  when  still  materi- 
ally and  psychologically  existing  ? 

Because   of   this   actual,   present   reality   of   historically 
re-created  values,  we  can  in  some  measure  justify  the  principle 


THEORETIC  ORDERS  OF  REALITY  323 

brought  forward  first  by  German  methodologists  and  recog- 
nized more  or  less  generally  since — the  principle  of  axiological 
selection  of  historical  object-matter.  Since  the  ultimate 
problem  of  history  is  not  theoretic  study,  but  real  preservation 
and  revival  of  historical  objects  in  their  empirical  concreteness, 
it  is  only  natural  if  each  historian,  each  nation,  each  epoch, 
tends  to  reproduce  first  of  all  historical  objects  which  seem  to 
them  most  worth  preserving  because  of  the  influence  which 
they  still  may  have  upon  future  cultural  life  when  historically 
revived.  The  danger  of  such  a  selection,  if  too  um'formly 
and  consistently  pursued,  lies  only  in  an  undue  limitation  of 
the  field  for  a  time,  which  may  result  in  a  general  narrowing 
of  the  cultural  interests  and  views  of  the  individual  or  the 
group;  this  danger  is  particularly  imminent  if  the  standards 
of  selection,  instead  of  being  sincerely  accepted  as  purely 
personal  or  national,  are  claimed  to  be  absolute.  German 
historiography  of  the  nineteenth  century  and  the  conse- 
quences of  its  influence  on  the  social  and  cultural  life  of  the 
German  nation  constitute  perhaps  the  best  known  and  most 
radical  proof  of  the  importance  of  this  danger. 

In  so  far  as  the  problem  of  the  actual  historical  repro- 
duction of  any  selected  historical  object  or  set  of  objects  is 
concerned,  several  methodological  questions  are  raised  which 
cannot  be  discussed  here  in  detail.  The  first,  chief  point  is 
that,  since  the  ideal  of  history  is  the  revival  of  past  reality 
as  it  was  and  a  total  reproduction  of  concrete  historical  objects 
in  their  whole  content  and  meaning  is  practically  impossible, 
history  must  try  to  reproduce  at  least  all  those  characteristics 
of  each  concrete  individual  historical  object. which  were  most 
important  at  the  time  of  its  full  realness;  that  is,  those  in  which 
its  own  determination  by  other  objects  and  its  influence 
on  other  objects  were  most  widely  and  most  durably  mani- 
fested. This  has  nothing  to  do  with  the  application  of  the 
concept  of  type  to  historical  reaHty  (Rickert),  which  results 
not  in  general  historical  reproduction  of  the  concrete  but 
in  special  sociological  theoretic  reconstruction.     The  second 


324  CULTURAL  REALITY 

point  is  the  necessity,  imposed  by  the  same  ideal,  of  avoiding 
as  far  as  possible  all  additions  to  the  reproduced  historical 
object  and  of  determining  its  content  and  its  meaning  in  a 
way  which  as  closely  as  possible  reproduces  its  past  deter- 
minations. This  possibility  is  also  limited  by  the  very  fact 
that,  in  order  to  have  a  cultural  object  which  no  longer  belongs 
to  our  sphere  of  reality  actually  given,  we  must  often  in  some 
measure  re-create  its  content  with  the  help  of  now  given 
contents;  but  the  arbitrariness  of  our  reproduction  can  be 
indefinitely  diminished  by  taking  the  historical  object  in 
connection  with  other  objects  of  the  same  period  and  the 
same  domain  of  concrete  extension,  by  reproducing  it  as  an 
element  of  a  whole  past  civilization  and  thus  supplementing 
the  deficiencies  in  the  reproduction  of  its  contents  by  a  more 
exact  determination  of  its  meaning  as  it  really  was.  It  is 
always  difiicult  to  trace  the  exact  dividing  line  between 
re-creation  and  new  creation;  history  will  always  border  on 
art,  and  often  may  pass  the  border.  B  ut  their  methodological 
tendencies  as  conditioned  by  their  ideals  are  different;  pre- 
cisely because  history  does  not  want  to  be  art  but  intends  to 
reproduce  pre-existing  reality,  it  makes  use  of  scientific 
concepts  which  art  in  its  desire  for  creation  of  new  reality 
must  ignore. 

In  every  empirical  historical  investigation  we  find  both 
intentions  characterized  above — that  of  preparing  materials 
for  some  science  and  that  of  reviving  historical  objects — 
more  or  less  intimately  coexisting.  Historical  preparation  of 
scientific  materials  demands  reproduction  of  the  past  with 
more  or  less  concreteness,  and  reproduction  of  the  past  with 
the  help  of  scientific  concepts  is  possible  only  by  a  synthesis 
of  various  abstract  aspects  of  past  historical  objects.  Not 
the  result  of  historical  investigation  at  a  given  stage,  but 
the  direction  in  which  it  progresses,  characterizes  it  either  as 
a  preparatory,  scientific  activity  or  as  a  specifically  practical, 
re-creative  activity.     It  is  the  former,  if  we  see  it  progress 


THEORETIC  ORDERS  OF  REALITY  325 

from  the  concrete  historical  chaos  toward  a  rational  system- 
atization  of  phenomena  determined  from  the  standpoint 
of  some  theoretic  order;  it  is  the  latter  if  it  advances  from  a 
provisional  systematic  organization  of  phenomena  in  accord- 
ance with  various  theoretic  orders  toward  a  reproduction  of 
the  concrete  historical  chaos.  Only  in  the  first  case  it  is 
essentially  scientific;  but  then  the  order  which  it  introduces 
is  always  a  specific,  limited,  abstract  order,  one  of  those  which 
we  have  outlined  above.  In  the  second  case,  though  it 
uses  science,  it  consists  in  empirically  practical,  not  in  ideally 
theoretic,  creation  and  the  realization  of  this  aim  is  the  more 
perfect,  the  more  exactly  the  chaotic  historical  reality  is 
reproduced.  Thus  history  cannot  furnish  us  with  a  universal 
theoretic  order  of  concrete  reality  independent  of  its  prac- 
tical organization  and  superior  to  all  special  scientific  orders, 
since  in  so  far  as  it  is  theoretic,  it  must  treat  concrete  reality 
from  the  standpoint  of  some  abstract  and  special  scientific 
order;  whereas  in  so  far  as  it  tends  to  embrace  reality  in  its 
historical  concreteness,  it  is  not  theoretic  and  does  not  order 
it  at  all. 

THE  INSTRUMENTAL  ROLE  OF  SCIENCE 

We  have  considered  knowledge  in  its  reference  to  the 
practical  organization  of  reality  as  to  its  object-matter. 
But  in  speaking  of  historical  reproduction  we  have  already 
approached  a  dift'erent  connection  between  theory  and  prac- 
tice, which  is  the  opposite  of  the  former ;  the  results  of  science 
can  become  the  object-matter  of  all  kinds  of  practical  activity. 
This  question  has  become  actual  particularly  because  of  the 
emphasis  put  by  pragmatism  upon  the  practical  application 
of  knowledge,  and  we  regret  the  necessity  of  dividing  it  and 
limiting  ourselves  exclusively  to  that  side  of  it  which  concerns 
the  role  played  by  ready  scientific  ideas  in  the  construction  of 
practical  systems,  postponing  to  a  later  time  the  connection 
between  practical  and  theoretic  activities  as  such,  and  in 


326  CULTURAL  REALITY 

particular  the  question  whether  and  how  theoretic  activity 
originates  and  develops  in  the  course  of  practical  activity  and 
vice  versa.  In  whatever  way  a  scientific  idea  has  been  pro- 
duced, whether  for  the  satisfaction  of  a  practical  need  or 
for  the  reahzation  of  theoretic  ideal,  it  certainly  can  be 
taken  out  of  the  theoretic  system  of  which  it  is  a  part  and  used 
for  practical  purposes.  The  problem  is  what  this  use  con- 
sists in  and  how  it  influences  the  theoretic  and  the  practical 
organization  of  reality. 

It  is  evident,  first  of  all,  that  theoretic  ideas  are  used 
exclusively  in  the  non-instrumental  period  of  activity  during 
which  the  system  of  reality — the  future  situation,  and  simi- 
larly also  the  future  schematic  system  of  situations,  and  the 
future  dogmatic  system  of  schemes — is  constructed;  but  as 
yet  it  is  constructed  only  "mentally";  it  has  not  passed  into 
the  state  when  instruments  begin  to  be  used  for  the  reali- 
zation of  the  determined  aim  on  the  ground  of  the  selected 
pre-existing  reality.  This  period,  during  which  the  aim  is 
being  determined  and  the  materials  and  instruments  chosen, 
is,  as  we  have  seen,  practically  qualified  as  subjective  as 
against  the  period  of  instrumental  realization.  Of  course, 
when  we  speak  of  it  as  of  a  definite  period,  preceding  the  period 
of  instrumental  reahzation,  it  does  not  mean  that  all  the 
"subjective"  activities  must  be  performed  necessarily  before 
any  "objective,"  instrumental  activities  can  start,  since  in 
fact  they  usually  overlap  each  other  more  or  less;  non- 
instrumental  activities  are  scattered  among  instrumental 
activities  and  vice  versa;  but  the  more  rationally  organized 
activity  becomes,  the  more  clearly  are  the  mental  and  instru- 
mental acts  segregated,  and  the  more  distinct  is  their  separa- 
tion in  time.  When  the  first,  non-instrumental  part  of 
practical  activity  makes  use  of  theoretic  ideas,  this  use  is  called 
planning,  and  the  second,  instrumental  part  assumes,  with 
reference  to  the  plan  superimposed  upon  the  practical  organi- 
zation of  reahty,  the  character  of  fulfilment. 


THEORETIC  ORDERS  OF  REALITY  327 

In  planning,  the  theoretic  idea  is  used  as  a  specific  instru- 
ment by  which  the  connections  mentally  established  between 
the  objects,  or  systems  of  objects,  from  which  a  system  is 
constructed  acquire  at  once  an  objectivity  intermediary  be- 
tween a  simple  actual  "imagined"  connection  and  one  already 
reaHzed  with  the  help  of  other  instruments  in  the  prac- 
tical world.  The  connection  established  with  the  help  of 
ideas  does  not  cease  to  be  dependent  on  thought,  does  not 
resolve  itself  into  static  properties  and  relations,  or  a  causally 
conditioned  process;  but,  although  dependent  on  active 
thought  for  its  actual  realization,  it  is  founded  on  the  rational 
order  of  reality  as  to  the  meaning  and  content  which  it 
gives  to  the  connected  objects.  Planning,  while  still  qualified 
practically  subjective  in  so  far  as  actually  performed  by  an 
individual,  has  at  the  same  time  an  objective  aspect  in  so 
far  as  the  individual,  while  performing  it,  acts  on  the  ground 
of  his  knowledge  of  the  objectively  organized  and  rationally 
determined  reahty. 

The  idea  can  play  the  role  of  an  instrument  for  planning 
because  of  its  double  character,  both  ideal  and  real.  As 
objectivated  thought,  it  can  be  actualized  in  its  essential 
content  at  any  moment,  while  on  the  other  hand  its  content, 
being  based  on  a  more  or  less  wide  area  of  rationally  deter- 
mined reality,  transcends  the  actual  spheres  of  experience  and 
reflection  of  the  individual  who  actualizes  it,  and  being 
objectively  stabilized  in  its  generality  is  very  little  dependent 
on  the  particular  modification  which  the  individual  may  give 
to  it  in  the  course  of  his  present  experience  and  reflection. 
Therefore,  by  treating  the  particular  object  actually  given 
to  him  as  an  element  of  a  theoretically  defined  class  embraced 
by  an  idea  and  by  determining  its  content  and  meaning 
on  the  ground  of  this  idea,  as  supplementing  and  controlling 
his  present  experience  and  reflection,  the  individual  raises 
this  determination  above  the  limitation  of  the  here  and 
now  and  makes  it  independent  of  any  ''nonessential"  con- 


328  CULTURAL  REALITY 

nections  which  the  unique  and  irrational  development  of  his 
personality  may  bring  with  it. 

Of  course,  the  individual's  determination  of  practical 
objects  is  always  made  with  regard  to  his  actual  practical 
intention  and  in  connection  with  other  present  objects.  It 
is  always  only  a  certain  aspect  of  the  given  object,  or  system 
of  objects,  that  he  is  interested  in — the  aspect  by  which  this 
object  can  be  incorporated  into  the  situation  which  he  wants 
to  construct  or  by  which  this  system  can  become  a  part  of 
some  wider  system  that  he  is  planning.  The  constructive 
side  of  planning  always  is  and  remains  practical;  the  aim  is 
spontaneously  quahfied,  the  practical  materials  and  instru- 
ments spontaneously  selected,  by  practical,  not  by  theoretic 
reflection.  But  every  practical  determination  given  to  an 
object  with  reference  to  other  objects,  every  practical  quah- 
fication  of  the  aim  with  reference  to  the  already  selected  and 
defined  instruments  and  materials,  every  choice  and  practical 
definition  of  a  material  or  an  instrument  relative  to  other 
materials  and  in  view  of  the  aim  as  already  determined,  are 
subjected  in  perfectly  purposeful  activity  to  the  theoretically 
reflective  control  of  ideas,  to  theoretic  criticism.  Any  prac- 
tical determination  which  cannot  be  justified  theoretically, 
which  cannot  be  treated  as  a  particular  application  of  a  general 
idea  or  of  a  synthesis  of  general  ideas,  but  seems  merely  the 
result  of  the  concrete  actual  set  of  personal  tendencies  and 
experiences,  is  excluded  as  subjective,  as  unwarranted  by  the 
rational  order  of  reahty,  and  only  those  determinations  are 
admitted  into  the  plan  which  have  stood  the  theoretic  test. 
The  plan  is  the  common  result  of  practical  production  and 
theoretic  criticism;  on  its  ideal  side  it  represents  an  expur- 
gated theoretic  reconstruction,  a  model  copy  of  the  actual 
practical  system  of  objects  on  the  ground  of  which  the  aim 
is  to  be  realized;  on  its  real  side,  it  is  an  objective,  perfectly 
rational  order  introduced  into  the  partly  subjective,  imper- 
fectly rational  organization  of  reality  which  the  individual, 


THEORETIC  ORDERS  OF  REALITY  329 

or  a  number  of  co-operating  individuals,  has  actually  reached 
at  the  moment  when  his  aim  is  ready,  his  instruments  and 
materials  selected,  and  fulfilment  begins.  The  real  empirical 
organization  as  we  find  it  in  practical  life,  is,  of  course,  never 
completely  identical  with  the  plan,  in  that  it  always  contains 
practical  features  which  would  not  stand  the  test  of  theoretic 
criticism;  but  such  features  are  not  supposed  to  influence 
instrumental  activity;  the  practical  problem  which  the  latter 
will  solve  is  supposed  to  be  entirely  expressed  in  the  plan. 
When  activity  passes  to  the  fulfilment  of  the  plan,  this 
fulfilment  becomes  in  turn  a  practical  test  of  the  applica- 
bility of  the  ideas  which  have  been  used  in  building  the  plan, 
to  the  particular  practical  conditions  to  which  they  have 
been  applied.  The  plan  is  evidently  realizable  only  if  it 
takes  fully  and  adequately  into  account  the  pre-existing  real 
nature  of  the  instruments  and  materials  in  their  reciprocal 
relation  with  regard  to  the  realization  of  the  given  aim.  An 
idea  may  be  based  on  such  characters  of  the  empirical  object 
or  system  of  objects  as  either  do  not  possess  a  sufficient  degree 
of  reality  to  serve  for  the  realization  of  the  given  aim,  or  else, 
even  if  sufficiently  real,  are  irrelevant  for  the  given  practical 
situation,  or  group  of  situations,  because  they  do  not  corre- 
spond to  the  requirements  of  other  objects,or  systems,  on  which 
the  reahzation  of  the  aim  will  be  based.  The  first  case  is 
found,  for  instance,  if  the  savage,  in  his  plan  of  a  technical 
situation,  makes  use  of  his  knowledge  of  the  magical  properties 
of  things.  The  magical  properties  are  not  entirely  unreal 
since  they  have  at  least  a  recognized  existence  within  the 
spheres  of  experience  and  reflection  of  the  given  social  group 
for  many  generations;  the  degree  of  their  realness  is  quite 
sufficient  to  reach  with  their  help  an  economic,  a  poUtical, 
a  religious  aim,  but  it  is  not  on  the  same  level  with  that 
of  physical  properties  and  therefore,  since  a  technical  aim 
requires  instruments  with  a  high  degree  of  realness,  their 
introduction  into  a  technical  situation  is  a  mistake.     The 


330  CULTURAL  REALITY 

second  t5^e  of  mistake  is  committed,  for  instance,  when  an 
inexperienced  technical  worker  selects  for  the  given  technical 
situation  a  certain  kind  of  material  on  the  ground  of  his  general 
knowledge  of  such  physical  properties  of  this  class  of  material 
as  may  have  served  to  realize  the  given  aim  in  other  situations 
in  connection  with  different  other  materials  and  with  the  help 
of  different  instruments,  but  are  of  no  use  in  the  present  situa- 
tion because  they  are  not  the  properties  which  this  material 
is  required  to  possess  in  view  of  the  nature  of  the  instruments 
and  of  other  materials  which  are  in  this  particular  situation 
at  the  disposal  of  the  worker. 

But  those  mistakes  are  practical  failures,  not  theoretic 
errors.  The  mistake  does  not  consist  in  judging  that  the 
given  objects  as  members  of  a  class  possess  properties  which 
they  do  not  possess,  for  they  do  possess  them  in  some  degree 
at  least,  since  these  properties  have  entered  into  the  definition 
of  the  class  to  which  these  objects  belong;  but  it  does  consist 
in  trying  to  use  them  on  the  ground  of  these  properties  for 
the  reaUzation  of  a  certain  practical  aim  in  connection  with 
certain  other  pre-existing  objects  with  which  they  cannot  be 
used  for  this  purpose.  Theoretic  reflection  can  show  only 
whether,  by  assuming  the  possession  of  certain  properties 
by  certain  objects,  I  am  "illusioning  myself";  that  is,  whether 
these  objects  possess  these  properties  only  within  the  limits 
of  my  present  personal  experience  and  reflection,  or  whether 
these  objects  are  "really"  such  as  they  seem  to  be  here  and 
now;  whether  they  belong  to  a  class  whose  members  are  known 
as  endowed  with  these  particular  properties  in  the  already 
existing  rational  order  of  reality.  But  what  use  I  shall 
make  of  objects  endowed  with  these  properties  in  my  present 
practical  activity,  after  having  found  that  my  view  of  them 
is  theoretically  justified,  is  a  purely  practical  problem. 

The  whole  question  is  the  same  when  it  concerns  relations, 
processes,  or  groups  of  interrelated  objects  and  series  of 
processes  included  in  a  situation.     I  can,  for  example,  test 


THEORETIC  ORDERS  OF  REALITY  331 

theoretically  the  assumption  that  a  certain  process  is  the 
cause  of  another  process;  how  to  make  use  of  this  knowledge 
in  practice,  how  to  construct  a  situation  in  which  this  causal 
relation  will  be  actually  reahzed  and,  being  realized,  will 
contribute  to  the  attainment  of  a  definite  end,  is  not  a  matter 
of  knowledge,  and  my  success  or  failure  has  nothing  to  do 
with  the  truth  or  falsity  of  my  theoretic  idea.  All  the  deter- 
minations of  things,  processes,  relations,  constituting  a  prac- 
tical situation  may  be  each  separately  tested  by  theoretic 
reflection,  and  they  are  thus  tested  in  building  a  perfect  plan; 
but  how  this  plan  can  be  practically  fulfilled  in  its  totaHty, 
whether  all  this  information  of  detail  is  so  combined  in  the 
plan  as  to  make  the  planned  situation  practically  solvable 
now  and  here,  is  evidently  not  the  business  of  the  science 
to  which  we  owe  this  information. 

Our  theoretic  control  may,  indeed,  go  farther  still,  and  we 
may  test  theoretically  the  objectivity  and  rationality  of  the 
whole  situation,  the  practical  method  of  combining  all  the  theo- 
retically tested  elements  of  the  situation,  of  stating  and  solving 
this  particular  practical  problem;  we  make  then  a  theoretic  crit- 
icism of  the  situation.  But  it  is  beyond  the  reach  of  our  theory 
whether,  when,  and  how  this  situation,  as  theoretically  tested 
both  with  regard  to  its  elements  and  with  regard  to  their  com- 
bination, will  be  practically  reahzed.  It  is  the  task  of  practice 
to  create  the  auxiHary  situations  necessary  for  the  construc- 
tion of  this  main  situation,  and  it  is  a  practical  mistake  if 
we  begin  to  construct  a  schematically  determined  situation, 
whether  theoretically  tested  or  not,  without  having  the  possi- 
biUty  of  preparing  all  that  is  necessary  for  its  realization. 
The  same  thing  repeats  itself  on  higher  stages  of  theoretic 
control  which,  to  be  practically  efScient,  must  be  dominated 
by  and  subordinated  to  still  wider  and  more  complete  practical 
organizations.  When  in  carrying  out  a  plan  all  of  whose  parts 
have  been  tested  by  theoretic  reflection,  we  succeed  or  fail  in 
attaining  the  expected  result,  our  success  op  failure  is  not  a 


332  CULTURAL  REALITY 

test  of  the  validity  of  our  knowledge,  but  of  our  ability  to 
use  our  knowledge  for  the  given  practical  purposes;  it  does 
not  show  whether  our  ideas  are  practically  applicable  or  not, 
but  whether  in  the  practical  construction  of  our  plan,  we 
have  selected  ideas  which  are  utilizable  in  the  given  practical 
conditions  and  combined  them  in  a  way  which  makes  the 
whole  plan  practically  realizable  within  the  given  sphere 
of  practical  reality.  Science  cannot  organize  practice:  it 
can  only  furnish  ideas-instruments  by  using  which  practice 
may  spontaneously  attain  at  once  a  higher  level  of  rationaUty, 
provided  it  selects  for  its  planning  in  each  particular  case  the 
proper  ideas  and  uses  them  in  the  proper  way. 

Of  course,  if  we  take  a  certain  set  of  practical  problems 
from  the  standpoint  of  these  problems  theoretic  ideas  may 
be  classified  into  useful,  directly  or  indirectly,  and  useless. 
Thus,  from  the  standpoint  of  material  technique  ideas 
bearing  on  the  physical  order  of  things  and  processes  are 
directly  utiHzable,  whereas  among  those  concerning  the 
psychological,  sociological,  ideal  orders  some  can  be  used 
only  indirectly,  and  others  not  at  all.  Ideas  must  also  express 
general  and  permanent  empirical  characteristics  of  the  reality 
of  a  certain  order  if  we  want  them  to  be  widely  and  per- 
manently appHcable;  thus,  the  idea  of  a  physical  property 
which  is  seldom  found  in  experience,  or  that  of  a  psychological 
datum  or  attitude  which  is  peculiar  to  some  supernormal 
or  subnormal  individuals,  is  of  Uttle  practical  use.  Finally, 
at  a  certain  level  of  practical  organization  only  ideas  below 
a  certain  degree  of  abstractness  are  valuable,  whereas  others 
whose  practical  significance  would  appear  only  if  practical 
activity  reached  a  systematic  unity  permitting  the  subordi- 
nation of  many  particular  situations  and  schemes  to  a  com- 
mon fundamental  dogma,  remain  provisionally  classed  as 
purely  speculative,  that  is,  as  having  no  other  significance 
than  that  of  helping  to  systematize  theoretic  ideas.  Thus, 
when  material  technique  in  Greece  was  disconnected  and 


THEORETIC  ORDERS  OF  REALITY  333 

chaotic,  as  is  social  technique  at  the  present  moment,  the 
speculations  of  philosophers  about  the  composition  of  matter 
had  no  practical  interest  whatever;  whereas  now  the  discussion 
between  atomism  and  energetism  assumes  more  and  more 
practical  importance  as  bearing  on  the  way  of  stating  and  solv- 
ing theoretic  problems  which  in  the  present  condition  of 
technique  evidently  are  or  will  be  practically  utilized. 

The  effects  which  the  practical  application  of  scientific 
ideas  has  upon  the  development  of  the  practical  organization 
of  reality  is  thus  due  not  to  a  substitution  of  theoretic  activity 
for  practical  activity  in  organizing  situations,  schemes,  and 
systems  of  schemes,  but  to  the  fact  that  practical  activity, 
by  using  the  results  of  theoretic  activity  as  instruments  for 
planning,  can  reach  more  rapidly  a  higher  degree  of  rationaHty 
in  the  organization  which  it  gives  to  its  object-matter.  The 
role  of  the  idea  is  exactly  similar  in  this  respect  to  that  of  any 
other  instrument:  it  does  not  diminish  the  demands  put  on 
practical  creation;  it  does  not  allow  us  to  dispense  with  any 
practical  organizing  efforts;  but  it  helps  to  increase  the  effi- 
ciency of  these  efforts  and  thus,  on  the  one  hand,  to  econo- 
mize innumerable  trials  and  repetitions  in  reaching  a  certain 
organization,  and  on  the  other  hand  to  widen  the  sphere  of 
possible  achievements. 

The  scientific  idea  or  system  of  ideas  corresponds  in 
every  field,  as  we  have  seen,  to  the  highest  degree  of  rational 
perfection  which  the  practical  organization  of  reality  has 
reached  in  the  given  line;  more  than  this,  not  satisfied  with 
the  rational  order  already  produced,  it  gives  practical  activity 
the  incentive  to  create  still  more  perfect  systems,  by  having 
it  prepare  with  the  help  of  practical  instruments — collect, 
classify,  isolate — fragments  of  reality  for  theoretic  observa- 
tion, and  particularly  by  inducing  it  to  experiment.  In  this 
way,  when  in  planning  a  practical  situation  we  use  theoretic 
definitions  for  the  objects  included  in  it,  when  in  creating  a 
scheme  we  define  theoretically  in  advance  the  situations  in 


334  CULTURAL  REALITY 

which  it  will  be  realized,  when  in  producing  a  dogmatic  system 
of  schemes  we  express  those  schemes  in  abstract  theoretic 
concepts  instead  of  limiting  ourselves  to  practical  concrete 
experiences  and  activities,  in  each  of  these  cases  we  shape  the 
constitutive  parts  of  our  present  practical  organization  in 
accordance  with  a  rational  model  and  are  thus  able  to  give 
them  at  once  a  definiteness,  a  generaHty,  and  a  permanence 
of  determination  which  otherwise  they  could  attain  only 
after  numerous  repeated  practical  attempts.  Compare,  for 
instance,  the  rapidity  with  which  any  new  branch  of  mechani- 
cal technique  reaches  now  an  almost  perfect  rational  organi- 
zation with  the  slow  perfecting  of  all  industries  in  primitive 
societies  or  even,  using  a  modern  example,  of  agriculture 
everywhere  until  a  hundred  years  ago. 

The  second  effect  of  the  use  of  ideas,  the  widening  of  the 
range  of  practical  creation,  is  directly  due  to  the  scientific 
systematization  of  knowledge.  This  systematization  in  each 
science  unifies  in  a  body  a  vast  complexity  of  rational 
forms  of  reahty  which  in  the  historical  world  are  scattered 
all  over  concrete  duration  and  extension  and  half-absorbed 
in  the  irrational  chaos  of  experience.  It  offers  thus  for  each 
practical  task  a  large  choice  of  ready  models,  easily  accessible 
and  easily  understood  in  their  reciprocal  rational  connections. 
Precisely  because  scientific  idealization  of  practical  reality 
does  not  follow  the  pre-existing  real  order,  but  takes  its  own 
object-matter,  practically  simple  or  practically  complicated, 
without  regard  to  the  practical  system  to  which  it  belongs, 
and  puts  it  into  connection  with  others  with  which  it  never 
was  connected  practically,  scientific  ideas  when  used  in  plan- 
ning make  an  unlimited  number  of  new  practical  combinations 
possible.  By  their  scientific  meaning  which  they  obtain 
while  being  theoretically  connected  with  other  ideas,  they 
suggest  to  the  practical  worker  such  possibilities  of  reshaping 
and  intercombining  given  practical  objects  and  practical 
systems   as   the   already   existing  practical   organization   of 


THEORETIC  ORDERS  OF  REALITY  335 

reality  could  never  suggest.  The  practical  organization  left 
alone  would  tend  to  a  perfect  stability,  to  an  exclusion  of  all 
impre visible  change  as  antirational.  But  when  it  begins 
to  use  theoretic  ideas  as  its  object-matter,  it  finds  there  a 
rational  order  completely  different  from  its  own  and  yet 
bearing  upon  its  own,  which  allows  it  to  produce  new  types  of 
organization,  by  their  very  appearance  substituting  them- 
selves in  active  experience  for  the  old  types  without,  however, 
annihilating  the  systematic  order  of  the  latter  which,  once 
constructed,  cannot  cease  to  exist.  Thus,  not  only  the  ration- 
alization of  any  new  practical  system  is  incomparably  more 
rapid,  owing  to  the  use  of  ideas,  but  the  rapidity  with  which 
new  systems  appear  increases  in  an  enormous  proportion  with 
the  growing  appHcation  of  theory  to  practice.  Compare 
the  record  of  technical  inventions  now  and  a  thousand  years 
ago,  or  the  development  of  material  technique  with  that  of 
social  technique. 

But  besides  these  well-known  utilitarian  consequences,  the 
practical  application  of  theoretic  ideas  has  a  less  popularly 
emphasized  but  not  less  important  effect  in  bringing  step  by 
step  a  progressive,  though  imperfect,  practical  realization  of 
the  theoretic  orders  in  the  empirical  historical  world.  We 
have  seen  that  the  degree  of  reality  which  a  theoretic  order 
can  acquire  in  being  imposed  upon  empirical  reality  by  theo- 
retic thought  cannot  become  very  high  as  compared  either  with 
the  old  concrete  complexes  of  historical  objects  or  with  the 
highly  real  instrumental  organization  of  practical  systems. 
When,  however,  a  theoretic  generalization  of  things,  situa- 
tions, schemes,  estabhshed  on  the  ground  of  their  uniformity, 
becomes  the  foundation  of  a  practical  reflective  tendency  to 
treat  in  the  future  these  things,  situations,  schemes,  as  uniform 
in  various  practical  systems,  then  the  theoretic  class  is  some- 
thing more,  besides  being  a  product  and  a  ground  of  scientific 
reflection:  it  is  a  constitutive  element  of  some  practical 
scheme.     When  further  a  theoretic  system  of  ideas  becomes 


336  CULTURAL  REALITY 

practically  used  to  establish  repeatedly  between  objects, 
situations,  schemes  of  various  classes,  such  connections  as 
exist  between  their  ideas,  the  system  is  something  more  than 
a  theory:  it  is  also  a  constitutive  part  of  some  practical 
dogma.  In  this  way,  the  theoretic  order  becomes  imposed 
upon  the  world  by  practice  with  the  help  of  practical  instru- 
ments. This  imposition  is  indeed  fragmentary  and  proceeds 
not  from  the  higher  theoretic  generalizations  down  to  partic- 
ular concepts  and  ideas,  but  from  particular  ideas  and  concepts 
of  a  very  limited  complexity  up  to  those  more  compre- 
hensive generalizations  which  practical  life  at  a  given  stage 
of  its  development  can  already  use  for  planning.  It  is  im- 
possible to  study  this  evolution  thoroughly  without  going 
into  much  historical  detail;  but  its  significance  will  be 
sufficiently  suggested  by  a  few  considerations. 

On  the  ground  of  practical  organization  alone  there  is 
no  reason  why,  for  instance,  in  an  industrial  system  the  tech- 
nical schemes  should  be  treated  as  belonging  more  closely 
together  than  the  economic  or  legal  schemes  actually  used 
and  without  which  the  continual  working  of  the  given  sys- 
tem of  industry  would  be  as  impossible  as  without  proper 
technical  methods.  Furthermore,  from  the  practical  stand- 
point there  certainly  is  no  original  connection  whatever  be- 
tween the  technical  schemes  used  in  different  industries  and  in 
various  countries.  But  science  creates  the  concept  of  a  purely 
material  reality  to  which  economic  and  legal  schemes  as 
such  do  not  belong,  and  scientific  theories  of  material  reality 
are  used  as  instruments  for  practical  planning.  This  brings 
with  it  the  creation  of  new  practical  connections.  The 
scientific  methodological  conception  of  one  material  reality 
subjected  to  one  order,  a  conception  developed  in  the  details 
of  scientific  research  and  systematization,  becomes  the  ground 
of  a  practical  tendency  to  treat  various  technical  schemes 
as  bearing  upon  the  same  domain  of  reality,  and  therefore 
as  interconnected  with  each  other  more  closely  than  with 


THEORETIC  ORDERS  OF  REALITY  337 

economic  or  legal  schemes,  independently  of  the  actual 
organization  of  particular,  empirically  given,  industrial  sys- 
tems. The  idea  of  one  material  technique  arises  as  an  ex- 
pression of  this  tendency;  there  is  a  new  practical  dogma 
more  or  less  clearly  formulated  and  resulting  in  the  estab- 
lishment of  innumerable  practical  connections  between  the 
technical  organizations  of  various  industries,  in  various  coun- 
tries, under  various  economic  conditions;  technique  slowly 
becomes  practically,  not  only  theoretically,  one  domain;  and 
reality  as  object-matter  of  technique  becomes  also  in  some 
measure  one  material  world  from  the  practical  standpoint. 

Furthermore,  the  possibility  of  practically  substituting  in 
some  cases  purely  technical  schemes  for  a  combination  of 
technical  and  social  schemes,  that  is,  of  introducing  machine 
work  instead  of  human  work,  generalized  by  the  growing 
application  of  science  and  theoretically  founded  on  the  con- 
ception of  the  methodological  unity  and  formal  homogeneity 
of  physical  nature,  leads  to  a  conscious  practical  tendency, 
manifesting  itself  all  through  technical  Hfe:  the  tendency  to 
substitute  everywhere  machine  work  for  human  work  and 
to  exclude  almost  entirely  social  schemes  from  industrial 
activities.  A  parallel  tendency  working  in  the  social  field, 
at  this  moment  rather  inadequately  expressed  in  the  social- 
istic ideal,  permits  us  to  foresee  a  gradual  practical  separation 
of  problems  concerning  control  of  nature  from  those  concern- 
ing control  of  society.  Such  a  separation,  in  so  far  as  effected, 
will  realize  in  practice  the  theoretic  distinction  of  the  physical 
from  the  social  order,  and  result  in  a  deeper  and  deeper  sys- 
tematic practical  organization  of  the  former  in  accordance  with 
the  postulates  of  physical  science. 

Similar  examples  are  found  in  the  sphere  of  personal  life. 
Psychological  reflection,  when  applied  to  the  solution  of 
practical  personal  problems,  produces  a  rationalization  of 
personal  experiences  completely  different  from  their  original 
practical  organization ;  see,  for  instance,  the  practical  influence 


338  CULTURAL  REALITY 

of  ancient  stoical  and  epicurean  doctrines.  Perhaps  the 
most  striking  case  of  practical  realization  of  a  theoretic  order 
is  the  fact  that  the  very  concept  of  psychological  consciousness 
as  of  a  distinct  domain  of  reality  has  been  so  generally  accepted 
as  a  practical  dogma  and  has  such  a  high  degree  of  reality 
that  philosophical  reflection  may  show  its  relativity  without 
being  able  to  counterbalance  its  influence  on  practical  life. 
However,  in  this  case  we  have  certainly  to  discount  the  role 
of  religious  factors. 

It  is  evident,  in  general,  that  only  a  long  empirical  investi- 
gation can  show  to  what  a  degree  in  any  given  domain  the- 
oretic thought  has  succeeded  not  only  in  superimposing  its 
order  over  the  practical  organization  of  reality  as  a  purely 
"mental"  systematization  of  experience,  but  also  in  imposing, 
though  only  fragmentarily,  its  order  upon  the  results  of  prac- 
tical activity  by  having  its  ideas  and  systems  realized  as 
components  of  practical  systems  and  with  the  help  of  practical 
instruments.  But,  whether  more  or  less  far-reaching,  the 
realization  of  the  theoretic  order  in  practice  is  possible  only 
because  of  the  fact  that  fragments  of  this  order — ideas  and 
systems  of  ideas— are  the  object-matter  of  practical  activity, 
are  isolated  from  their  ideal  content,  incorporated  into  dy- 
namic practical  systems  and  used  by  practical  reflection  for 
practical  purposes  as  instruments  of  planning.  In  the  same 
way,  as  we  have  seen,  the  idealization  of  the  practical  organi- 
zation of  reality  is  possible  only  because  fragments  of  this 
organization — objects  and  systems  of  objects — are  the  object- 
matter  of  theoretic  activity,  are  isolated  from  their  real 
content  and  incorporated  into  theoretic  systems.  The  rela- 
tion between  the  theoretic  and  the  practical  rationality  of  the 
world  is  strictly  reciprocal.  Each  influences  the  other,  but 
only  by  being  passively  used  as  instrument  or  as  material  for 
the  other's  construction  and  development. 


CHAPTER  VI 
THE  PROBLEM  OF  APPRECIATION 

The  rational  systems  of  reality,  practical  and  theoretic, 
whose  construction  we  have  investigated  are,  as  we  know, 
superimposed  directly  or  indirectly  upon  the  concrete  chaos 
of  the  historical  reaUty,  are  built  from  concrete  historical 
objects  and  complexes  by  active  determination  and  system- 
atization.  Even  in  their  totality  they  do  not  exhaust  the  con- 
crete wealth  of  contents  and  meanings  which  the  historical 
world  possesses;  no  concrete  historical  object  is  entirely  ana- 
lyzable  into  objectively  determined  things  and  psychological 
data;  no  concrete  complex  is  entirely  reducible  to  a  rational 
situation  or  set  of  situations.  The  empirical  reality  in  its 
full  extension  and  duration  always  is  the  dynamic  back- 
ground, indefinite,  changing,  chaotic,  upon  which  many 
rationally  simplified  and  stable  figures  are  outlined  without 
ever  covering  the  background. 

Furthermore,  all  systematic  organization  of  reality,  with 
these  very  characteristics  of  definiteness,  rational  simplicity, 
and  stabihty,  by  which  it  is  opposed  to  its  concrete  historical 
background,  is  not  only  constructed,  but  maintained  above 
the  historical  chaos,  prevented  from  dissolving  again  into  the 
concrete  extension  and  duration  from  which  it  arose,  by  a 
continued  effort  of  human  activity  which,  by  a  natural  illusion, 
accepts  as  given  any  order  which  it  is  led  by  its  own  presup- 
positions to  expect,  without  realizing  that  it  is  its  impHcit 
tendency  to  have  its  expectations  fulfilled  which  makes  it 
reconstruct  this  order  in  each  particular  case  for  each  partic- 
ular purpose. 

But  this  is  not  all.  The  rationally  determined  and  sys- 
tematized reaUty,  even  when  created  and  maintained,  does 

339 


340  CULTURAL  REALITY 

not  remain  an  immovable  superstructure  built  upon  the  reality 
of  concrete  experience.  Though  there  is  more  and  more 
rationality  in  the  empirical  world,  this  does  not  mean  that  the 
empirical  world  passes  from  a  chaotic  and  historical  to  an 
organized  and  scientific  stage,  that,  speaking  in  terms  of  old 
ideahsm,  there  is  a  progressive  realization  of  Reason  in  experi- 
ence, a  progressive  exclusion  of  irrationahty  whose  ultimate 
limit  would  be  complete  substitution  of  a  definite  pluraUty 
of  perfect  systems  for  the  original  chaos. 

If  this  ideahstic  dream  could  ever  come  true,  the  real 
world  would  lose  its  historical  character,  since,  all  systems 
being  ready  and  each  rationally  determined  within  itself, 
there  would  be  no  place  for  the  creative  becoming  and  the 
irrational  multiplicity  of  historical  duration  and  extension. 
But  even  then  reality  would  remain  concrete,  since  all  these 
systems  never  could  combine,  as  we  have  seen,  in  one  rational 
system.  And  even  if  we  imagined  that,  with  the  growth  of 
some,  now  unforeseen,  new  method  of  rationahzation  such  a 
single  rational  system  could  ever  be  constructed  over  the  many 
and  various  particular  systems,  still  the  latter  would  preserve 
their  peculiarities,  would  be  incorporated  into  this  new 
system  only  mediately,  by  a  "  hierarchy  of  intermediary 
orders,  and  a  concrete  object  or  a  concrete  complex  of  objects 
would  never  be  rationally  exhausted  from  one  standpoint, 
but  would  have  to  be  treated  in  various  aspects  by  various 
systems.  But  modern  ideahsm  has  almost  ceased  to  claim 
that  the  dream  of  a  perfectly  rational  world  can  be  more  than 
a  progressively  realizable,  but  never  attainable,  ideal.  And 
from  this  standpoint,  a  reality  which  should  only  tend  to  be 
converted  from  a  full  concrete  chaos  of  historical  objects 
into  a  hmited  non-historical  plurality  of  systems  subordinated 
to  some  universal  system,  would  still  preserve  during  this 
evolution,  that  is,  during  all  its  empirical  existence,  some  of 
its  primary  historical  characteristics,  though  in  a  continually 
decreasing  measure.     This  conception  of  a  gradual  passage  of 


PROBLEM  OF  APPRECIATION  341 

reality  from  an  irrational  to  a  rational  status,  when  analyzed 
proves  thus  to  represent  the  minimum  of  what  an  ontological 
rationalism  can  demand;  it  is  the  last  intrenchment  of  the 
rationaHstic  doctrine  which,  starting  with  the  absolute,  real- 
istic monism  of  the  Eleates,  is  driven  step  by  step  to  the 
idealistic  conception  of  a  partially  unified  pluraHsm  to  be 
realized  in  an  infinite  future. 

But  even  this  minimum  of  rationalistic  claims  cannot  be 
conceded.  For  every  component  of  the  rational  organization 
of  reaUty,  every  practical  thing,  situation,  scheme  or  dogma, 
every  theoretic  idea  or  system  of  ideas,  however  limited  and 
however  wide,  with  all  its  rationality,  is  reintroduced  as  a 
concrete  object  into  the  historical  becoming  from  which  it 
emerged  as  a  system  or  part  of  a  system.  Its  total  rational 
organization  is  then  its  content,  and  this  more  or  less  system- 
atic content  varies  when  viewed  in  various  historical  com- 
plexes by  various  individuals;  its  meaning  is  given  to  it  not 
with  reference  to  its  rational  relation  to  other  components  of 
the  rational  organization  of  reality,  but  with  regard  to  its 
dynamic  actual  connection  with  any  objects  whatever  with 
which  it  may  be  coupled  for  present  purposes.  A  thing, 
a  practical  situation,  a  scheme,  a  system  of  schemes,  a  scien- 
tific idea,  a  theory,  the  entire  body  of  science,  may  become 
an  aesthetic,  a  hedonistic,  a  religious,  an  economic,  a  politi- 
cal object,  or  all  of  these,  by  becoming  the  object-matter  of 
various  individual  activities.  They  are  differently  experi- 
enced and  differently  reproduced  at  various  here's  and  wow's 
and  mean  something  else  for  everyone  according  to  the  actual 
use  which  he  makes  of  them.  As  concrete  objects,  they  are 
again  parts  of  the  concrete  extension  and  duration,  and  grow 
or  decrease  in  reahty,  or  are  diversified  or  stabilized,  just  as 
any  historical  object. 

This  reintroduction  of  rationally  determined  objects  and 
systems  into  the  historical  reahty  is,  however,  not  the  result 
of  unintentional,  unorganized  activity  as  is  the  estabh'shment 


342  CULTURAL  REALITY 

of  many  other  connections  between  actually  given  contents 
in  the  concrete  course  of  experience  and  reflection.  A  com- 
ponent of  the  rational  organization  of  reahty  is  not  originally 
and  accidentally  experienced  as  a  content,  or  if  it  is,  then 
its  experiencing  does  not  include  its  rational  determination 
or  its  systematic  order.  Thus,  in  unintentional  experience 
a  certain  particular  thing  is  not  given  as  a  rationally  deter- 
mined element  of  a  situation  or,  still  less,  as  a  part  of  the 
rational  physical  reality:  it  is  given  only  as  an  immediately 
sensual  content  with  some  actually  realizable  suggestions. 
A  situation  if  unintentionally  objectified  is  not  given  as  a 
system  of  interrelated  things  or,  still  less,  as  a  part  of  the 
psychological  reality,  but  as  a  rather  vague  complexity  with  a 
few  outstanding  contents  and  meanings  not  systematically 
ordered  at  all.  A  scientific  theory  when  unintentionally 
given  is  represented  by  a  vaguely  limited  content  including 
symbols,  a  few  "representative"  objects  symbolized,  perhaps 
one  or  two  suggestions  of  theoretic  analysis  or  synthesis, 
and  a  vague  plurahty  of  indefinite  possible  experiences  and 
acts  behind  all  this.  The  rational  determination  of  a  thing 
as  of  an  element  of  a  situation  or  of  the  physical  order,  the 
rational  systematic  organization  of  a  situation,  the  rational 
systematic  order  of  ideas  in  a  scientific  theory,  or  of  concrete 
experience  as  object-matter  of  this  theory,  are  given  as  essen- 
tial characteristics  of  their  content  when  they  become  incor- 
porated into  historical  reality,  only  if  and  in  so  far  as  this 
thing,  situation,  theory,  theoretic  order,  are  intentionally 
used  as  historical,  empirical  objects  for  the  purpose  of  creating 
new  objects  in  concrete,  dynamically  organized  activity. 
For  example,  when  the  statically  determined  characteristics 
of  the  thing  are  being  utihzed  for  a  hedonistic  purpose; 
when  the  practical  organization  of  things  in  an  individually 
constructed  situation  is  taken  as  a  ground  for  altruistic  activ- 
ity which,  by  helping  the  individual  solve  this  situation,  will 
result  in  a  moral  value;    when  the  rational  perfection  of  a 


PROBLEM  OF  APPRECIATION  343 

scientific  theory  is  counted  upon  as  an  asset  for  social  per- 
suasion which  is  expected  to  facilitate  a  political  revolution: 
then  the  rationality  of  the  thing,  of  the  practical  situation,  of 
the  theory,  belongs  essentially  to  their  content  as  historical 
values,  since  if  they  did  not  have  the  determination  or  the 
organization  which  they  do  possess,  they  could  not  be  uti- 
lized as  they  are  for  the  purposes  of  hedonistic,  moral,  political 
creation. 

In  fact,  we  have  already  spoken,  when  discussing  the 
practical  organization  of  reality,  about  the  objectivation  of 
practical  systems  as  elements  of  other,  wider  systems,  and  in 
the  last  section  of  the  preceding  chapter  we  saw  how  theoretic 
ideas  become  instruments  for  practical  planning.  But  we 
have  treated  this  reintroduction  of  ready  fragments  of  ration- 
alized reality  into  the  dynamic  development  of  activity  only 
from  the  standpoint  of  the  progress  of  rational  organization 
to  which  they  may  be  made  to  contribute.  This  is,  however, 
only  one  side  of  the  question.  Every  increase  of  rationahty 
is  always  and  necessarily  accompanied  by  a  corresponding 
increase  of  the  historical  chaos.  Any  fragment  of  the  ration- 
alized reaHty,  by  being  used  to  construct  a  new  rational  sys- 
tem, becomes  thereby  an  element  of  historical  reality,  and  the 
wider  its  rational  use,  the  greater  its  concrete  historical  vari- 
ety of  content  and  meaning.  Whatever  is  thought  and  done 
in  the  world,  even  the  development  of  rational  order,  con- 
tributes to  the  growth  of  chaotic  historical  reaUty. 

Now,  such  objects  or  systems  as  are  reintroduced  from  the 
rationally  organized  reaUty  into  historical  reaHty  by  being 
used  as  concrete  objects  for  dynamic  creative  action,  and 
which,  when  turned  into  objects,  preserve  their  rationality 
as  essential  part  of  their  content,  possess  as  a  consequence  of 
this  a  different  meaning  than  the  primary  historical  objects 
whose  content  does  not  include  any  rational  determination. 
It  is  evidently  a  completely  different  matter  whether  we  treat 
a  stone  or  a  tree  just  as  it  is  primarily  given  to  us  in  actuality 


344  CULTURAL  REALITY 

or  whether  we  take  it  into  account  with  those  rational  deter- 
minations which  it  possesses  for  industry  as  technical  material 
or  for  science  as  a  physical  thing;  and  the  meaning  which  a 
legal  institution  possesses  for  a  casual  observer  who  sees  the 
building,  the  men,  and  a  few  actions  performed  by  those  men 
is  certainly  not  at  all  similar  to  that  which  a  criminal,  a  moral 
reformer,  or  a  scientist  gives  to  it  when  connecting  it  with 
his  hedonistic,  moral,  or  theoretic  aim,  and  conscious  of  the 
rational  organization  of  legal  schemes  which  are  behind  the 
direct  empirical  data. 

We  can  therefore  make  a  distinction  between  the  primary 
historical  object,  that  is,  a  concrete  object  whose  content  is 
constituted  by  that  which  is  given  directly  in  individual 
actuahties,  and  the  secondary  historical  object,  a  concrete 
object  which  is  not  entirely  reducible  to  direct  data,  because 
it  contains  also  a  rational  qualification  whose  existence  is 
due  to  the  determination  which  this  object  has  acquired  by 
becoming  a  component  of  the  practical  or  theoretic  organiza- 
tion of  reahty.  The  stone,  the  tree,  the  painting,  the  legal 
institution,  the  scientific  theory,  are  primary  historical  ob- 
jects in  so  far  as  the  content  of  each  of  them  is  simply  the 
totality  of  that  which  various  individuals  at  various  moments 
have  actually  experienced  when  these  objects  were  given  in 
various  concrete  connections.  But  the  same  stone  or  tree 
is  a  secondary  historical  object  when  its  content  includes  the 
rational  determination  which  has  been  imposed  upon  it  by 
technique  or  science. 

This  determination  cannot  indeed  be  reaUzed  actually 
in  its  full  rationaHty  unless  we  reproduce  the  scientific  or 
technical  system  in  which  it  has  been  acquired;  when  the 
stone  or  the  tree  is  used  outside  of  this  system,  as  a  concrete 
historical  object,  serving  some  other  intentional  activity, 
the  rationality  which  it  possesses  as  a  physical  or  technical 
thing  can  be  experienced  only  indirectly.  We  quaKfy  the 
empirically  given   content  by  the  suggestion  of  a  rational 


PROBLEM  OF  APPRECIATION  345 

order  in  which  certain  of  its  characters  are  founded,  whereas 
other  characters  lack  this  foundation.  Similarly,  the  paint- 
ing is  a  secondary  historical  object  if  its  content  is  critically 
qualified  with  an  implicit  reference  to  an  aesthetic  system, 
a  style  of  which  it  is  an  example,  instead  of  being  naively 
observed  as  a  representation  of  some  reahty.  The  legal 
institution  is  a  secondary  historical  object  if  that  which  is 
directly  given  in  casual  observation  is  qualified  by  the  sug- 
gestion of  a  system  of  political  schemes  existing  behind  the 
actually  appearing  things,  men,  and  actions,  so  that  in  view 
of  this  qualification  certain  of  these  directly  perceived  phe- 
nomena seem  essential,  rooted  in  the  objective  political  order, 
others  accidental,  due  merely  to  the  fact  that  the  institution 
is  being  observed  at  a  certain  moment  and  from  a  certain 
individual  standpoint.  The  scientific  theory  is  a  secondary 
historical  value  when  the  whole  complexity  of  symbols  and 
symbolized  objects  which  is  actually  given  when  "we  think 
about"  it,  is  quahfied  by  the  suggestion  of  a  rational,  systematic 
order  of  ideas  which  constitutes  objectively  this  theory  as 
part  of  the  ideal  reality,  so  that  certain  of  the  experiences 
which  we  have  when  thinking  about  this  theory  appear  as 
having  a  foundation  in  this  suggested  rational  order,  whereas 
others  are  included  in  our  experience  only  as  a  consequence 
of  the  connections  in  which  the  theory  is  given  to  us  here 
and  now. 

By  this  quahfication,  the  content  of  a  secondary  historical 
object  is  in  a  sense  divided  into  a  rationally  fixed  nucleus 
which  appears  as  essential  for  this  object,  and  a  nebula  of 
nonessential  characters  which  have  no  foundation  in  any 
systematic  order.  Of  course,  this  rational  nucleus  is  in  fact 
also  historical,  varying  from  individual  to  individual  and  from 
moment  to  moment,  since  even  those  characters  of  the  object 
which  are  rationally  founded  appear  different  in  each  actual 
experience  and  the  suggestion  of  rational  order  behind  them 
varies  from  case  to  case.     But  there  always  is  the  possibiUty 


346  CULTURAL  REALITY 

of  actually  reconstructing  this  rational  order,  of  turning  the 
given  historical  object  again  into  a  rationally  determined 
object  or  a  rationally  organized  system,  and  thus  the  nucleus, 
even  though  varying  in  fact,  seems  always  and  everywhere 
the  same  in  principle,  imposes  itself  upon  every  actual  experi- 
ence as  absolutely  independent  of  this  experience,  as  the 
reaUty  per  se,  the  thing-in-itself  underlying  the  actual  data. 

Consequently,  the  secondary  historical  object  cannot  be 
used  as  freely  for  any  actual  purposes  as  the  primary  historical 
object.  When  we  want  to  create  some  new  object  with  its 
help,  we  find  that  we  do  not  control  it;  our  present  activity 
can  in  no  way  change  its  rationally  fixed  nucleus — unless,  of 
course,  we  reconstruct  and  modify  the  whole  rational  system 
in  which  this  nucleus  is  founded — and  by  introducing  it  into 
our  action  we  have  not  only  made  use  of  its  actually  experi- 
enced content  and  meaning,  but  we  have  made  the  progress 
of  our  activity  dependent  on  its  transcendent  character; 
we  have  implicitly  subjected  the  accomplishment  of  our  in- 
tention, in  so  far  as  the  latter  is  already  defined,  to  the  con- 
ditions imposed  by  a  rational  order  which  is  entirely  beyond 
the  reach  of  our  actual  influence,  and  which  may  either  con- 
tribute to  the  definition  and  realization  of  our  aim  much  more 
than  any  actually  given  primary  object-matter  of  our  present 
activity,  however  real  historically  it  may  be,  could  do  by 
itself,  or  put  in  our  way  much  more  efficient  hindrances  than 
the  mere  lack  of  the  necessary  materials  or  instruments  within 
our  present  sphere  of  reality.  Under  these  circumstances, 
the  secondary  historical  object  becomes  from  the  standpoint 
of  the  present  dogmatically  organized  activity  an  object  of 
positive  or  negative  appreciation,  sl  positive  or  negative  value. 

This  opens  before  us  a  new  and  wide  field  of  problems 
which,  however,  cannot  be  adequately  stated  and  solved 
within  the  Umits  of  the  present  work.  Reahstic  philosophy 
has  always  tried,  indeed,  to  treat  the  positiveness  and  negative- 
ness  of  values  as  expUcable  on  the  ground  of  a  theory  of  reality 


PROBLEM  OF  APPRECIATION  347 

alone,  either  conceiving  them  as  absolute  characteristics  of 
objects,  which  are  then  taken  as  being  in  themselves,  by  vir- 
tue of  their  objective  essence,  good  or  bad,  beautiful  or  ugly, 
sacred  or  impure,  true  or  false,  or  taking  them  as  results 
of  synthetic  connections  between  natural,  social,  ideal  re- 
alities on  the  one  hand  and  psychological  realities  on  the 
other;  that  is,  between  things  and  personal  (sometimes  even 
social)  feehngs,  emotions,  desires,  etc. 

But  it  is  evident  that  neither  of  these  methods  is  adequate. 
For  objective  reality  by  itself  is  never  positive  or  negative; 
we  make  it  positive  or  negative  by  using  it  for  some  active 
purpose,  even  if  this  use  should  be  only  "mental. "  Positive- 
ness  and  negativeness  are  not  characteristics  that  we  discover 
in  objects,  but  characteristics  that  we  give  to  objects.  Indeed, 
the  rational  constitution  of  these  objects  as  real  systems  or 
parts  of  systems  is  a  ground  for  our  appreciation,  but  only 
a  partial  ground,  since  there  is  no  object  whatever  which, 
while  remaining  the  same  in  its  rational  constitution,  may  not 
be  subjected  by  different  individuals  and  different  moments 
to  opposite  appreciations.  This  is  the  reason  why  reaUsm, 
having  searched  in  vain  for  absolute  values,  was  forced  to 
make  appreciation  dependent  not  only  on  the  rational  con- 
stitution of  the  object,  but  also  on  the  condition  of  the  psycho- 
logical subject.  But  this  is  merely  a  restatement  of  the  fact 
that  the  appreciation  of  an  object  varies  from  individual  to 
individual  (or  group)  and  from  moment  to  moment.  And 
an  explanation  of  these  variations  on  the  psychological  ground 
tells  us  nothing  about  the  objective  conditions  on  which  they 
depend,  so  that  the  psychological  ''theory  of  values"  gives 
up  not  only  absoluteness,  but  also  objectivity;  it  resigns  all 
possibihty  of  studying  the  economic,  poHtical,  moral,  aesthetic, 
theoretic — in  general,  the  objective — factors  of  relative  ap- 
preciations.^ 

*  Compare  for  the  problem  of  relative  values,  my  article  "The  Principle  of 
Relativity  and  Philosophical  Absolutism,"  The  Philosophical  Review,  March, 
1915- 


348  CULTURAL  REALITY 

For,  if  the  appreciation  of  an  object  varies,  though  the 
rational  constitution  of  the  object  remains  invariable,  it 
is  because  it  depends  on  the  dynamic,  actually  constructed 
system  of  values  with  which  it  is  put  in  connection  for  the 
determination  and  reaHzation  of  an  aim.  The  object  is  not  a 
positive  value  at  a  given  moment  and  for  a  given  individual 
because  it  provokes  in  this  individual  pleasure  or  pain,  desire 
or  aversion,  but  it  provokes  pleasure  or  pain,  desire  or  aversion 
because  it  is  positive  or  negative  from  the  standpoint  of  the 
dynamic  organization  which  the  individual  intentionally  con- 
structs at  the  given  moment.  Since  a  value  by  its  objective 
rational  constitution  may  help  the  creation  of  one  object  and 
hinder  that  of  a  different  object,  it  is  clear  that  in  the  first  case  it 
will  be  positive,  in  the  second  negative;  and  since  its  role  will 
depend  on  the  nature  of  the  object  which  is  being  created  and 
of  the  materials  and  instruments  on  the  ground  of  which  it  is 
being  created,  there  are  real  objective  reasons  for  both  its  pos- 
itiveness  in  some  connections  and  its  negativeness  in  others. 
On  the  other  hand,  a  value  can  help  or  hinder  creation  by  its 
pre-existing  rationality  only  as  long  as  activity  is  still  in 
progress,  as  long  as  it  has  not  yet  constructed  a  ready  system 
of  objects.  For  when  the  system  is  once  constructed,  the 
value  will  be  either  excluded  from  it  or  included  in  it;  in  the 
former  case  it  will  no  longer  count  at  all  from  the  standpoint 
of  the  system,  whereas  in  the  latter  case  it  will  be  an  element 
of  the  system,  completely  determined  within  its  Hmits  with 
regard  to  its  other  elements,  and  any  rational  determination 
it  may  have  possessed  outside  of  this  system  will  be  either  irrel- 
evant for  the  latter  or  converted  into  a  determination  within 
the  system.  In  other  words,  as  part  of  a  ready  system  of 
reahty  the  value  is  no  longer  an  object  of  appreciation  because 
everything  in  its  content  which  could  affect  the  organization 
of  the  system  has  been  already  taken  into  account  in  construct- 
ing the  system,  belongs  to  the  system  as  an  objective  com- 
ponent.    The  actual  existence  of  the  positive  or  negative 


PROBLEM  OF  APPRECIATION  349 

character  which  a  value  acquires  with  reference  to  a  certain 
dynamic  organization  of  objects  depends  thus  on  the  funda- 
mental tendency  and  logical  systematization  of  the  activity 
which  is  actually  connecting  this  value  in  its  objective  ration- 
ahty  with  other  actually  selected  and  dynamically  organized 
objects.  Therefore  a  study  of  values  as  positive  or  negative 
cannot  be  made  except  on  the  ground  of  a  theory  of  creative 
activity. 

The  problem  of  valuation  is  thus  the  unifying  link  between 
the  problem  of  reality  and  the  problem  of  active  thought. 
The  existence  of  positive  and  negative  values  is  the  common 
result  of  the  rational  organization  of  reality  and  the  logical 
organization  of  activity.  It  cannot  be  explained  by  either  of 
these  organizations  alone.  In  so  far  as  the  theory  of  reahty 
takes  values  into  account,  it  needs  to  be  supplemented  by  a 
theory  of  activity.  And  every  type  of  science  of  reahty  has 
to  deal  in  some  measure  and  in  some  form  with  empirical 
values.  This  is  quite  evident  with  reference  to  the  sciences 
of  the  ideal  order;  every  dogmatic  system  of  schemes,  pohti- 
cal,  economic,  moral,  aesthetic,  religious,  theoretic,  is  empiri- 
cally used  as  a  standard  of  appreciation  by  all  the  individuals 
who  accept  it  as  the  basis  of  the  practical  organization  of 
their  experiences  in  a  certain  Hne.  Social  realities  as  object- 
matter  of  social  theory  possess  on  the  one  hand  the  character 
of  criteria  of  values  when  statically  treated,  in  so  far  as 
individual  experience  and  activity  are  required  to  conform  with 
them  and,  by  actually  following  or  not  this  requirement,  are 
positively  or  negatively  appreciated;  and  on  the  other  hand 
each  of  these  criteria  is  itself  a  value  when  viewed  from  the 
dynamic  point  of  view,  whenever  in  the  course  of  social  evo- 
lution it  is  positively  or  negatively  appreciated  relatively  to 
other  components  of  social  civilization,  as  corresponding  or 
not  to  actual  experiences  and  attitudes  of  the  members  of 
the  given  group.  In  the  static  psychological  order  personal 
experiences  are  values,  when  regarded  from  the  standpoint  of 


350  CULTURAL  REALITY 

their  actual  confonnity  or  non-conformity  with  the  standards 
imposed  by  natural  reality,  and  in  the  dynamic  psychological 
order  appreciation  is  involved  in  the  actual  appearance  of 
every  attitude  and  the  object  with  regard  to  which  the  attitude 
is  taken  is  a  value.  Even  in  the  physical  order  the  distinction 
between  the  physically  real  and  the  physically  unreal  imphes 
valuation  as  manifested  in  the  course  of  actual  practical  organ- 
ization or  theoretic  research,  though  reduced  to  a  minimum. 

A  science  of  reaHty  can  ignore  the  existence  of  values 
only  as  long  as  it  remains  within  the  limits  of  an  abstractly 
isolated,  closed,  ready,  perfectly  rational  real  system.  As 
soon  as  it  extends  its  investigation  beyond  these  hmits,  at- 
tempts to  put  the  system  on  the  wider  ground  of  concrete, 
imperfectly  rational  reaUty,  or  tries  to  find  some  connection 
between  it  and  the  rest  of  the  world,  even  if  only  in  order  to 
reach  at  the  end  of  this  investigation  a  rational  relation 
between  this  system  and  some  other,  also  perfectly  rational, 
system,  it  meets  inevitably  the  problem  of  appreciation  in 
its  way,  in  the  form  of  a  number  of  empirical  values  which  it 
may  finally  succeed  in  analyzing  and  explaining  away  but 
which,  by  the  very  fact  that  they  must  be  explained  away, 
remind  it  continually  of  the  part  played  by  human  activity 
in  constructing  and  maintaining  all  rational  order.  The 
knowledge  of  reality  would  be  self-sufficient  if  it  were  com- 
pletely ready  and  its  entire  object-matter  were  given  at  once 
in  a  perfectly  achieved  rational  order.  But  because  it  is 
and  always  will  be  a  knowledge  in  becoming,  because  it  has 
to  rationalize  its  object-matter  step  by  step,  because  any 
rational  order  it  wants  to  construct  in  a  perfect  form  exists 
objectively  as  an  imperfectly  rational  organization  of  innu- 
merable imperfect  and  chaotically  interconnected  systems,  all 
immersed  and  becoming  in  the  ceaselessly  evolving  stream 
of  historical  reahty  from  which  they  must  be  taken  out  in  the 
very  course  of  scientific  investigation,  the  knowledge  of  reality 
will  be  never  sufficient  to  itself.     It  needs  continually  to  be 


PROBLEM  OF  APPRECIATION  3$ I 

supplemented  by  some  knowledge  which  is  not  a  theory  of 
reality  as  rational.  Each  of  its  static  results  is,  indeed, 
perfectly  valid  within  itself  and,  in  so  far  as  achieved,  recon- 
structs adequately  the  rational  aspect  of  reahty  upon  which 
it  bears.  But  in  its  dynamic  development,  in  its  tendency 
to  transcend  any  given  results,  to  widen  indefinitely  every 
rational  order,  it  meets  at  every  step  the  creatively  growing 
side  of  the  world  which  it  cannot  grasp.  In  a  word,  the 
knowledge  of  reality  must  be  supplemented  by  some  other 
type  of  knowledge,  not  because  of  the  imperfection  of  its 
doctrines,  but  because  of  the  specific  character  of  its  researches 
which,  while  pursuing  any  theoretic  problem,  must  exclude 
progressively,  in  order  to  reach  any  rational  solution,  all  these 
features  of  their  object-matter  which  are  founded  not  in  ra- 
tional stabilization,  but  in  creative  development. 

It  can  be  supplemented,  needless  to  repeat,  only  by  an 
empirical  theory  of  activity,  if  such  a  theory  is  possible; 
and  an  empirical  theory  of  activity  must  be  identical  with 
philosophy.  For,  on  the  one  hand,  we  have  seen  that  there 
is  no  place  left  for  philosophy  in  the  entire  domain  of  the 
knowledge  of  reality  and  that,  on  the  other  hand,  all  particular 
sciences  are  sciences  of  reality  and  there  is  none  whose  object- 
matter  could  include  active  thought.  Moreover,  philosophy 
has  always  had  the  ambition  of  being  a  theory  of  the  world  as 
a  whole  and  thus  creating,  as  "queen  of  sciences, "  an  objective 
unity  of  knowledge.  But  no  unity  of  knowledge  can  be 
reached  in  the  field  of  reality:  therefore,  assuming  that  a 
theory  of  activity  is  possible,  it  is  the  only  domain  in  which 
the  old  ideal  of  a  synthesis  of  all  knowledge  might  still  have 
some  objective  significance. 


INDEX 


INDEX 


Absolute,  266  ff. 

Absolute  experience  criticized,  28 

Absolute  meanings,  philosophy  of,  go,  gi 

Absolute  subject  (ego),  rejected,  28-2g,  133, 
264  ff. 

Absolute  values,  12  ff.,  22,  go,  gi,  346  ff. 

Abstraction,  234  ff. 

Abstractness:  of  contents  denied,  58,  sg;  of 
ideas.  234  ff. 

Acquaintance:  opposed  to  knowledge,  231; 
aim  of  history,  322 

Act:  of  reflection,  40  ff.;  producing  connec- 
tions, 65  ff.;  as  creative,  118,  i6g;  instru- 
mental distinguished  from  mental,  177  ff.; 
starting  a  process,  205,  206;  not  a  cause, 
22s,  226;  objectivated  as  idea,  233  ff. 

Action:  practical,  i54-6g;  in  physics,  253 

Activity:  in  general,  xii,  24  ff.,  34g;  identified 
with  thought,  42  ff.;  individual  range  of, 
i2gff.;  theoretic,  152,  230  ff.;  practical, 
constructing  systems  and  producing  ob- 
jects, 15s  ff.,  326  ff.;  instrumental,  177  ff-, 
308,  326  ff.;  mental,  178  ff.,  ig8,  308,  326  ff. 

Actuality:  of  experience,  35  ff.;  of  reflection, 
40  ff.;  final  definition  of,  50;  and  personal- 
ity, SI,  52 

Adaptation:  of  active  being  to  environment 
criticized,  17,  18,  131,  132,  163  ff.,  274; 
between  new  object  and  pre-existing  reality 
in  practice,  165  ff. 

Aesthetic  complex  as  reality,  81,  82 

Aesthetic  object:  as  example  of  historical 
object,  gg  ff.;  its  concrete  extension,  113-14; 
as  value,  345 

Aim,  160,  161,  i6g,  182  ff. 

Analysis,  scientific,  237  ff. 

Application:  of  theory  in  practice,  xiv-xvi, 
2,  3,  4.  325  ff- 

Appreciation,  87  ff.,  346  ff. 

Approximation,  scientific  principle  of,  244  ff. 

Aristotelism,  mediaeval,  10 

Aristotle:  logic,  44,  185;  conception  of  actual- 
ity, 116;   history  of  philosophy,  301 

Art:  applied,  illustrating  multiplication  of 
objects,  ggff.;  as  practical  organization  of 
reality  for  the  production  of  new  objects, 
i68,  183,  186,  i8g-g2;  distinguished  from 
history,  324;  as  object-matter  of  theory, 
2gg  ff. 

Association  of  data  of  experience,  36  ff.,  65  ff., 
80 

Atomism,  333 

Attitude:  concept  of,  in  psychology,  280  ff.; 
in  sociology,  2gs  ff. 

Attribute,  247,  252 

Automatization  of  activity,  260 

Au.xiliary  actions,  ig3  ff. 

Auxiliary  situations,  ig4ff-;  their  unification, 
208  ff- 

Axiological  selection  in  history,  323 

Becoming:    of  experience,  37  ff.;    of  reality, 

117  ff. 
Beginning:  of  reality  in  time,  iig  ff. 
Behaviorism,  274 
Bergson,  x,  xii,  123,  148,  152,  268 
Biological:      presuppositions     in     theory     of 

knowledge,    3S.;     in   psychology,    272-74; 

in  sociology,  287,  288 


Body:  organic,  as  instrument,  73,  74, 172,  187; 
as  historical  product,  131,  132;  in  psy- 
chology, 273 

Categories:  traditional,  in  practice,  185  ff.; 
in  theory,  245,  246,  255  ff. 

Causality:  as  concrete  connection,  75-77; 
inapplicable  to  historical  evolution,  122  ff.; 
as  practical  relation,  208,  225  ff.;  as  theoretic 
principle,  244,  245,  2578.;  psychological, 
274,  note,  280,  281;  psycho-physical,  278; 
sociological,  2gs  ff. 

Cause:  final,  208;  etlicient,  225  ff.;  as  func- 
tional dependence,  258 

Change:  of  content  denied,  60,  61;  as  prac- 
tical form,  206;  as  theoretic  form,  24g,  253, 
254 

Civilization:  past  reconstructed,  13s  ff.; 
defined  as  culture  of  a  territorially  localized 
group,  2g3 

Classification:  of  sciences,  245  ff.,  318  ff.; 
psychological,  277;   sociological,  2g3 

Common-sense  reality,  81,  100,  14s,  146,  228, 
2  2g 

Communication,  social,  138  ff.,  2g2 

Complex,  system  of  objects  with  a  minimum 
of  rationality,  64,  7g,  g7  ff.,  i4g  ff. 

Complexity:  of  contents  denied,  sg,  60;  of 
practical  organization,  217;  of  ideas,  237, 
238;   of  social  reality,  2g3  ff. 

Concept,  237  ff. 

Concreteness:  of  contents  denied,  58,  sg;  of 
historical  objects,  7g  ff.,  g4  ff.;  and  rational- 
ity in  science,  244,  282,  2g7 

Connection:  theory  of,  64  ff.;  objectivated  as 
relation,  184,  185 

Consciousness,  27,  30,  31,  43,  51,  52,  263,  264, 
271  ff. 

Conservatism:  in  practical  life,  227,  228;  over- 
come by  science,  334,  33s 

Construction  of  systems,  154  ff. 

Consumption  of  food  as  example  of  practical 
activity,  157,  158 

Content:  as  datum  and  subject-matter  of 
reflection,  56  ff.;  and  meaning,  in  realistic 
and  idealistic  philosophies,  87  ff.;  its  rela- 
tion to  meaning  in  the  practical  instrument, 
170, 17s,  176;  of  the  idea  drawn  from  reality, 
230,  232  ff. 

Continuity:  of  the  course  of  e.xperience,  2g  ff.; 
of  historical  evolution,  120,  121 

Control:  of  reality  by  active  thought,  210  ff., 
221  ff.,  228,  22g,  304,  310;  of  practice  by 
theory,  152,  328  ff. 

Co-operation,  social,  141  ff. 

Creation:  concept  of,  in  modern  philosophy, 
xff.;  as  condition  of  personal  life,  50-52; 
unorganized,  of  historical  reality,  iigff.; 
organized,  154  ff.;  of  new  types  of  processes, 
25gff.;  of  ideas,  230,  231;  in  historiography, 
320  ff. 

Culturalism,  formulation  of,  15  ff. 

Culture:  in  the  traditional  sense,  as  special 
part  of  reality.  8  ff.,  55,  in,  112,  122,  138; 
in  the  sense  of  the  present  work,  covering 
the  entire  reality  in  so  far  as  produced  and 
determined  by  human  activities,  15  ff.,  24, 
25,  44  f.,  53,  54,  passim 


355 


356 


CULTURAL  REALITY 


Datum:  of  experience,  27  ff. 

Destruction,  134  S. 

Determination:  essential  of  contents  denied, 
56  3.;  of  contents  through  connections, 
68  ff.;  of  objects  in  the  complex,  79  ff.;  of 
objects  in  the  practical  system,  1493.; 
of  situations  in  the  scheme,  202  ff.,  292;  of 
schemes  in  the  dogma,  223  fi'.;  uniform,  of 
theoretic  object-matter,  2345.;  causal,  of 
processes,  257 

Dewey,  xii 

Differentiation  of  historical  objects,  96  ff. 

Direction:  in  time  and  of  time,  37  ff.,  115  ff. 

Discontinuity  of  experience,  29 

Dogma,  practical,  214  ff. 

Dogmatic  systems  as  object-matter  of  science, 
299  ff. 

Dream  as  reality,  8i,  82 

Dualism  of  subject  and  object,  exposed  and 
criticized,  263  ff. 

Duration:  in  experience,  31,  37  ff.;  of  his- 
torical reality,  114  ff.;  of  natural  things, 
249,  250,  253,  254 

Durkheim,  174,  29s 

Dynamic  order:  in  physical  science,  246, 
257  ff.;  in  psychology,  277  ff.;  in  sociology, 
295  ff.;  in  sciences  of  the  ideal  order  im- 
possible. 314 

Dynamic  organization:  of  reality  in  practice, 
iSQff. 

Economic  organization,  212  ff. 
Economic  systems,  299  ff. 
Economic  values,  71,72 
Economics,  301  ff. 

Effect:  not  homogeneous  with  cause  in  prac- 
tice, 173  ff..  225-27;  equivalent  to  cause  in 

physics,  259 
Ego:   absolute,  28,  29,  133,  265 
Egyptian  civilization  as  example  of  destroyed 

and  reproduced  reality,  135  ff. 
Eleates,  341 
Element:    of  experience,  27-30;    of  practical 

organization,  201,  202 
Empirical  character  of  reality,  52  ff.,  154  ff.; 

forms  of  experience,  26  ff. 
Empiricism,  realistic,  32,  46,  84  ff. 
Empirio-criticism,  259 
Ends,  practical,  163,  205  ff. 
Energetism,  333 
Energy,  physical,  172 
Epicureanism,  10 
"Epiphenomenon,"  267,  273 
Essence:     of   natural   objects,    252,    253;     of 

dogmatic  systems,  305;    of  secondary  his- 
torical objects,  345-46 
Evidence,  epistemological  and  logical,  48 
Evolution,  cultural,  opposed  to  natural,  15  ff., 

119  ff.,  259  ff. 
Evolutionism,  3  ff.,  122  ff.,  259  ff.,  267 
Existence,  133  ff. 
Experience:    as  foundation  of  cultural  reality 

and    starting-point    of    philosophy,    24  ff.; 

absolute,  28;  individual  sphere  of,  106 
Experiences:     personal,   as   contents,   61;     as 

object-matter  of  psychology,  276  ff. 
Experiment,  244,  277 
Extension:    of   historical  reality,    105  ff.;    of 

natural  reality,  248,  249,  251,  252;  of  social 

reality,  292  ff. 
Extensiveness  in  experience,  32  ff. 
Externality,  reciprocal,  of  data,  31 

Failure,  practical,  187  ff.,  330  ff. 
Fichte,  5,  265 


Final  cause,  208 

Finality,  i6o,  205  ff. 

Food:   illustrating  meanings,  72;   as  example 

of   historical   object,   103;    as  example  of 

hedonistic  instrument,  187 
Forms:  of  experience,  24  ff.;  of  reality,  245  ff. 
French  sociology,  289 
Fulfilment  of  plan,  326  ff. 
Functional  dependence,  258 
Future:    foresight  of,   130,   131;    control  of, 

210  ff. 

Generality:   of  contents  denied,  28;   of  ideas, 

235  ff- 
Generalization,  234  ff. 
Geographical  localization  of  civilizations,  iir, 

112,  293 
Geographical    presuppositions    in    sociology, 

287  ff. 
German  historiography,  323 
Greek  philosophy,  7,  10,  88  ff.,  266,  301,  332 
Guyau,  x 

Habit,  19s 

Hedonistic  activity,  187 

Hedonistic  selection,  217,  218,  225 

Hedonistic     values:      illustrating    meanings, 

72,  73;    as  examples  of  historical  objects, 

105,  106 
Hegel  and  Hegelianism,  s,  13,  268 
Herbart,  253 
Here:  as  form  of  experience,  27,32  ff.;  as  basis 

of  extension  of  reality,  106  ff. 
Historical  reality,  104  ff. 
History,  320  ff. 

Homogeneity  of  cause  and  effect,  1738.,  225-27 
Husserl,  x 

Idea:    Hegelian,   5;    as   real  object,   44,   77; 

Platonic,  60,  123;    its  extension,  113,  114; 

as  copy  of  object,  rejected,  232;   as  element 

of   knowledge,    237  ff.;     as   instrument   for 

planning,  327 
Ideal:  intellectual,  constructed  by  philosophy, 

10  ff.;    of  the  complete  rationality  of  the 

world,  242  ff.,  340 
Ideal  order  of  reality,  297  ff. 
Ideal  reality,  77,  174  ff.,  230  ff. 
Idealism:    versus  realism,  i  ff.;    and  cultural 

evolution,  18  ff.;  and  time,  32;  in  theory  of 

values,  90  ff.;  and  order  of  reality,  146,  147; 

and  subject-object  dualism,  264  If.;   and  the 

ideal  of  rationality,  340 
Ideality:    of  the  connection,   65;    of  certain 

practical  conditions,  217 
Idealization  in  knowledge,  233  ff. 
Identity:    of  qualities  in  things,   251  ff.;    of 

personal  situations  assumed  in  psychology, 

277 

Image"  of  object,  33,  62-63 
"Imaginary"  character  of  content  denied,  57 
"Immanence,"  philosophy  of,  265 
"Independence"  of  things  from  connections, 

247,  250,  251 
Individual,  34,  43,  50-52,  116,  117,  129;    in 

society,  285  ff. 
Individualization,  essential  in  social  becoming, 

29s 
Industry,  199,  218,  219 
Infinite  causal  series,  225,  226,  257,  258 
Infinite  space,  iii  ff. 
Infinite  time,  114  ff. 
Influence  of  the  concrete  object  in  historical 

reality,  68  ff.,  75,  76,  143,  144 
Instinct,  195,  209,  225  ff. 


INDEX 


;57 


Institutions:  social  and  political,  as  examples 
of  practical  products,  i6i,  167;  as  instru- 
ments of  social  activity,  171,  172;  their  per- 
manence resulting  in  growth  of  influence,  209 

Instrument:  illustrating  the  meaning,  73-75; 
theory  of,  169  ff.;  of  theoretic  activity,  231, 
233;   for  planning,  327 

Instrumental  activity,  177  ff.;  role  of  science, 
32s  ff- 

Intellectualism,  152  ff. 

Intention,  156  ff. 

Interference,  scientific  principle  of,  244  S.,  311 

Invention  fostered  by  science,  334 

Irrationality:  of  concrete  objects,  79  ff-,  94. ff-; 
of  the  personality,  82-84;  of  historical 
reality,  147,  339  ff.;  of  the  psychological 
domain  when  viewed  from  the  naturalistic 
standpoint,  270 

Isolation:  of  elements  of  e.xperience,  36  ff.;  of 
practical  systems  within  historical  reality, 
217,  227;  of  things  in  space,  247  ff.;  of 
theoretic  object-matter,  239  ff.;  of  theoretic 
ideas,  233  £f. 

James,  \V.,  7 

Kant  and  Kantianism,  s.  32,  265,  316 
Knowledge:    its  historical   realitivity,    15  ff.; 

and  practice,    152-54,   315  ff.;    theory  of, 

230  ff.,  301 

Law,  political,  as  example  of  scheme,  195,  196, 

200,  201 
Laws:    causal,  12  ff.,  244,  245;    in  physical 

science,  2576.;    in  psychology,  279  ff.;    in 

sociology,  296,  297 
Leibniz,  250 
Le  Roy,  288 
Limitation:    of  individual  experience,  34,  39; 

of  individual  life  in  time,  116,  117;  of  things 

in  space,  247  ff. 
Limits:    of  the  course  of  experience,   36  ff.; 

of   concrete    reality,    53  ff.,    148,    149;     of 

theoretic  rationalization,  314  ff. 
Localization:  in  space,  32  ff.,  60,  112,  113,  248, 

249;  of  social  groups,  292;  of  things  in  time, 

249;   of  changes  in  time,  253  ff. 
Logic:  Aristotelian,  44, 185;  of  active  thought, 

44  ff.,  146  ff.,  349;   of  things,  24s  ff. 

Mach,  viii 

Material:  of  active  thought  in  general,  42  ff., 
119;  of  practical  activity,  157  ff.,  181  ff., 
passim;  of  knowledge,  232  ff. 

Materialism,  259,  266,  267 

Materiality:  illustrating  the  meaning,  74-77; 
theory  of,  246  ff.,  336 

Matter  of  experience,  26  ff. 

Meaning:  as  ground  of  reality,  67  ff.;  and 
content,  in  realistic  and  idealistic  philos- 
ophies, 87  ff.;  its  relation  to  content  in  the 
practical  instrument,  170,  175,  176;  of 
ideas,  due  to  their  connection  with  other 
ideas,  236  ff.;  as  condition  of  the  psycho- 
logical influence  of  objects,  278  ff. 

Means,  practical,  163,  205  ff. 

Meinong,  x 

Mental  activity,  1788.,  198,  232,  308,  326  ff. 

Metaphysic:  naturalistic.  18  ff.,  259;  of 
experience,  28  ff. 

Method,  philosophical,  x,  22,  23,  24  ff.,  53  ff., 
145  ff.>  351 

Methodological  use  of  categories,  245,  255  ff., 
268  ff. 

Methods  of  sciences,  ix-x,  243  ff. 


Mind,  15,  16,  18  ff. 

Models:  artistic  and  technical,  99  ff.;  of 
rational  organization  constructed  for  theo- 
retic purposes,  243,  244 

Model  situation,  197  ff. 

Modus,  247,  249 

Monism:  naturalistic,  20;  ontoogical,  147  ff., 
257i  319;  in  theory  of  knowledge,  317  ff. 

Multiplicity  and  unity  of  historical  objects, 
96  ff. 

Mijnsterberg,  x 

Myth:  illustrating  the  meaning,  70,  71;  as 
example  of  historical  object,  98,  99;  its  evo- 
lution, 127  ff. 

Naturalism:  as  modern  form  of  realism,  3  fi'.; 
and  cultural  evolution,  15  ff.;  in  theory  of 
values,  89,  90;  and  extension  of  reality, 
109  ff.;  and  duration  of  reality,  117  ff.;  as 
ontologj',  245  ff.;  in  psychology,  262  ff.;  in 
sociology,  286  ff. 

Necessity:  in  practical  organization,  205  ff., 
223-25;  in  theoretic  orders,  257,  258 

Negative  values,  346  ff. 

Neo-Platonism,  10 

New  Realism,  x 

Now:  as  form  of  experience,  27,  30  ff.,  37,  38; 
as  foundation  of  real  duration,  114  ff. 

Object,  55  ff.,  84  ff.;  historical,  94  ff.;  natural, 
as  part  of  culture,  122  ff.;  physical,  246  ff.; 
opposed  to  subject,  266  ff. 

Objectivation:  of  experience  in  actuality,  40; 
of  contents  as  parts  of  reality,  62  ff. 

Objectivity,  40  ff.,  50-52,  53  ff.;  of  connec- 
tions, 65;  of  individual  "representations" 
of  objects,  94  ff.;  of  rational  orders  of 
reality,  147 

Ontological  use  of  categories,  245,  255  ff., 
268  ff. 

Ontology,  xiii,  314  ff. 

Order:  rational,  in  general,  147  ff.;  theoretic, 
in  general,  242  ff.;  physical,  245  ff.;  psycho- 
logical, 2692.;  sociological,  28361.;  ideal, 
of  reality,  297  ff. 

Organization:  practical,  of  reality,  145  ff.; 
of  practice  with  the  help  of  knowledge,  333  ff. 

Parallelism,  psycho-physiological,  273 

Particularity:  of  contents  denied,  58;  in 
knowledge,  235  ff. 

Pascal,  7 

"Perceivable,"  character  of  content  denied,  57 

Perfection:  of  real  order  in  general,  criticized, 
147  ft".;  of  pre-existing  organization  assumed 
by  knowledge,  243  ff.;  ontological,  impos- 
sible, 251  ff. 

Personality,  50-52,  82  ff.,  116,  117,  128,  129, 
175 

Phenomenalism,  265 

Philosophical  method,  x  ff.,  22,  23,  24  ff.,  53  ff., 

145  ff-.  351 

Philosophy:  of  culture,  vii  ff.;  its  scope,  vii- 
viii,  350,  351;  of  values,  X,  87  ff.;  its  applica- 
tion, xiv,  xv;  its  role  in  knowledge,  13-15; 
of  meanings,  87  ff.;  of  reality,  314  ff.;  of 
activity,  350,  351 

Physical  evolution,  259 

Physical  order,  245  ft'. 

Physical  reality:  not  distinguished  in  practice, 
174  ff.;   as  theoretic  construction,  2465. 

Physical  science,  246  ff. 

Plan  and  planning,  196,  326  ff. 

Plato  and  Platonism,  5,  60,  103,  123,  253   301 

Plotinus,  268 


358 


CULTURAL  REALITY 


Pluralism,  256,  257,  341 

Plurality:   in  experience,  27-30;   of  historical 

objects,  96  ff.;  of  things,  251 
Polish  historical  idealism,  xii 
Political  organization,  219-21 
Political  science,  301  ff. 
Political  system,  299  ff. 
Position  of  things  in  space,  248 
Positive  values,  346  ff. 
Practical   activity,    152  ff.;     and   knowledge, 

32s  ff- 
Practical  dogma,  214  ff. 
Practical  organization  of  objects,  iS7  ff- 
Practical  realization  of  theoretic  orders,  335  ff. 
Practical  scheme,  los  ff. 
Practical  situation,  180  ff. 
Pragmatism,  xii,  xv,  xvi,  152,  33s 
Presence  of  data  in  experience,  27,  28 
Present  in  the  course  of  experience,  31,32 
Primary  historical  objects,  344 
Problem,  practical,  involved  in  the  situation, 

181  ff.,  203 
Process:    as   practical   category,    207  ff.;    as 

theoretic  category,  257  ff.;    in  psychology, 

271  ff. 
Production:        versus     destruction,     133  ff.; 

organized,  of  new  objects  in  general,  155  ff.; 

of  new  ideas  as  purpose  of  scientific  sys- 

tematization,  241,  242 
Property:     as    practical    category,    184;     as 

theoretic  category,  246  ff. 
Psychical  reality:   not  distinguished  in  prac- 
tice, 174  ff.;   as  theoretic  construction,  262, 

269 
Psychological  elements,  277 
Psychological  evolution,  281 
Psychological  fact,  271 
Psychological  law,  281 
Psychological  order,  260  ff- 
Psychological  process,  271  ff. 
Psychology,  270  ff.;  social,  279 
Psycho-physical,  causal  relation  rejected,  278 

Quality,  246,  251,  252 
Quantity,  246 

Rationality:  as  general  feature  of  reality 
45  ff.;  minimum  of,  S3-SS.  64  ff.,  79  ff. 
its  source,  146,  147;  its  imperfection,  147  ff. 
relatively  perfect,  assumed  by  knowledge 
243 

Rationalization:  gradual,  of  reality,  148  ff., 
245,3175.;  its  limitations,  314  ff. 

Reaction  in  physics,  253 

Realism:  versus  idealism,  i  ff.;  mediaeval,  5, 
236;  its  conception  of  reality,  53  ff.,  76  ff., 
84  ff.;  and  theory  of  values,  87  ff.;  and 
rational  order,  146,  147 

Reality,  xiii,  41  ff.,  53  ff.;  absolute,  53  ff.; 
ideal,  77,  113,  114;  common-sense,  81,  100, 
145,  146;  historical,  104  ff.;  material, 
122  ff.;  theoretically  ordered,  145  ff.,  230  ff.; 
practically  organized,  152  ff.,  208,  209 

Realization:  of  the  aim,  162,  169,  181  ff.;  of 
the  end,  205  ff.;  of  theoretic  orders  in  prac- 
tice, 335,  336;  of  Reason  in  the  empirical 
world,  criticized,  340 

Realness:  of  connections,  65,  66;  of  material 
objects,  74  ff.;  as  variable  characteristic  of 
objects  in  general,  136, 143, 144;  of  practical 
results  increased  by  instruments,  170  ff. 

Reconstruction:  of  reality  in  actuality,  51,  52, 
62,  63,  79;  of  practical  order  in  knowledge, 
238  ff. 


Reflection:  as  general  foundation  of  culture, 
24  ff.,  56;  individual  sphere  of,  106  ff.; 
practical,  152  ff.;  theoretic,  152,  327  ff. 

Reintroduction:  of  rational  objects  and 
systems  into  the  historical  chaos,  341  ff. 

Relation:  opposed  to  connection,  65,  75-77; 
as  practical  category,  185;  of  finality,  20s; 
of  causality,  208,  225  ff.,  274,  278  ff.;  as 
theoretic  category,  246,  250,  254 

Relativity,  historical,  of  values,  15  ff.,  347  ff. 

Religious  systems,  299  ff. 

Renouvier,  x 

"Representation"  as  opposed  to  object,  84  ff., 
160  ff.,  182  ff.,  248  ff. 

Reproduction:  of  connections,  67  ff.;  of  com- 
pletes, 80  ff.,  146,  147;  of  destroyed  realities, 
134  ff.;  of  experiences  of  other  individuals, 
138  ff.;  of  systems  in  general,  154  ff.,  231; 
of  situations,  193  ff.;  of  schemes  in  a  dog- 
matic system,  221;  of  pre-existing  organiza- 
tion of  reality  in  knowledge,  criticized, 
232  ff.;  in  historj',  321  ff. 

Rickert,  x 

Rule,  19s,  215 

Schematic  situation,  198  ff. 

Scheme  in  practical  organization,  195  ff.;  as 
sociological  category,  283  ff. 

Schopenhauer,  124,  268 

Science:  its  relation  to  philosophy,  viii,  x; 
theory  of,  230  ff.;  as  practical  instrument, 
326  ff. 

Sciences:  natural,  ix,  2  ff.,  246  ff.,  317;  cul- 
tural, ix,  8  ff.,  305  ff.,  318;  classification  of, 
24sff.,  3i7ff. 

Scientific  systems  as  object -matter  of  investi- 
gation, 299  ff. 

Secondary  historical  objects,  344 

Selection:  of  objects  in  practice,  152, 153,  i6o; 
hedonistic,  218  ff.;  of  values  in  history,  323 

Self-identity  of  things,  247,  249  ff. 

Similarity:  of  historical  objects,  96  ff.;  not  a 
real  relation,  2348.;  as  bond  between 
things,  251,  252;  of  personal  experiences  in 
psychology,  276  ff. 

Simplicity:  of  contents  denied,  59,  60;  rela- 
tive, of  ideas,  237,  238 

Situation:  in  practical  organization,  180  ff.; 
in  psychology,  275  ff. 

Social  causality,  295  ff. 

Social  communication,  138  ft".,  292 

Social  co-operation,  141  ff. 

Social  evolution,  293,  295 

Social  psychology,  279 

Social  reality:  in  practice  not  differentiated, 
174  ff.;    as  theoretic  construction,  2846. 

Social  rule,  290  ff. 

Social  scheme,  285  ff. 

Social  standards,  291 

Social  values,  280,  290 

Sociological  laws,  290,  297 

Sociological  method:  in  philosophy  of  nature, 
288,  289;   in  other  sciences,  300  ff. 

Sociological  order,  283  ff. 

Sociology,  284,  note,  286  ff. 

Socratism,  88 

Solipsism,  265 

Solution  of  practical  problems,  171  ff.,  204  ff. 

"Soul,"  271 

Space,  109  ff.,  247  ff.,  258 

Spatiality:  of  data  of  experience.  32  ff.;  of 
contents,  60;  of  concrete  historical  reality, 
109  ff.;  of  natural  reality,  247  ff. 

Spencer,  293,  301 

Sphere  of  experience,  individual,  io6  ft". 


INDEX 


359 


Sphere  of  reality,  individual,  128,  izg 

Sphere  of  reflection,  individual,  106  ff. 

Spinoza,  61,  151 

Stability:  of  complexes  as  manifestation  of 
their  realness,  81-82;  of  the  rational  or- 
ganization of  reality  dependent  on  active 
thought,  211,  221 

Standards:  of  values,  6,  7,  12  ff.;  of  active 
thought,  41  ff.,  152-53;  of  reality,  41  ff.;  of 
practical  success,  191  ff.;  social,  291 

"States  of  consciousness,"  271  ff. 

States  of  things,  246,  253,  254 

Static  order:  in  natural  science,  246  ff.;  in 
psychology,  275-78;  in  sociology,  2935.; 
in  sciences  of  the  ideal  order,  314 

Stoicism,  10,  338 

Subject:  in  theory  of  experience  inacceptable, 
25;  in  practical  activity,  163-64;  in  natural- 
istic ontology,  250,  passim;  opposed  to 
object  in  general,  263  ff. 

Subjectivation  in  actuality,  40 

Subjectivity,  40  ff.,  53  ff.;  of  "representa- 
tions," 86  ff.;  as  source  of  irrationality, 
criticized,  147  ff.;  in  practical  activity, 
160  ff.;   theoretic  conceptions  of,  262  ff. 

Subordination  of  particular  to  general,  235  ff. 

Substance,  247,  249,  250,  252 

Subsumption  of  concrete  to  abstract,  237  ff. 

Success:  as  criterion  of  science,  2  ff.,  148.; 
in  practical  activity,  189  ff. 

Succession  of  data  in  experience,  31,  37  ff. 

Suggestion  of  connecting  act  equivalent  to 
meaning  of  object,  67  ff. 

"Super-consciousness,"  132,  133 

"Super-Ego,"  133 

Supra-personal  character  of  the  social  and 
natural  orders,  286,  288 

Symbol:  illustrating  meaning,  69,  70;  as 
means  of  social  communication,  140;  as 
example  of  instrument,  175;  its  instru- 
mental role  in  knowledge,  231,  233 

Synthesis  in  science,  237  ff. 

System:  of  reality  in  general,  46,  47,  63  ff.;  of 
thought,  46,  47;  and  complex,  149  ff.;  of 
objects,  its  construction,  154  ff.;  of  situa- 
tions, 198  ff.;  of  schemes,  216  ff.;  of  activ- 
ities implied  in  the  dogma,  221;  of  knowl- 
edge, 230  ff.;  as  object-matter  of  science, 
399  ff. 

Systematization,  scientific,  231,  233  ff. 

Technical  instruments,  172  ff. 

Technical  products,  99  ff.,  161 

Technique,  material,  as  example  of  practical 
organization  of  reality,  157,  189,  195,  196, 
198  ff.,  205,  206,  212  ff.,  218,  219 


Teleological  system  in  practice,  207  ff. 

Test:  practical,  of  truth,  4,  5;  rejected,  329  ff. 

Theoretic  activity,  152,  153,  230  ff. 

Theoretic  order,  230,  242  ff. 

Theoretic    reflection    about    activity,    152  ff., 

327  ff. 
Theoretic  thought,  25,  26,  76,  77,  230  ff.     See 

also  Theoretic  activity 
Theory  of  art,  301  ff. 
Theory  of  knowledge,  230  ff.,  301  ff. 
Theory  of  religion,  302  ff. 
Thing:     as    practical    category,    184  ff.;     as 

theoretic  category,  246  ff. 
Thomas,  VV.  I.,  xvi,  281,  note,  313,  note 
Thought:     24-26,    41  ff-;     and    idea,    233  ff.; 

not  included  in  the  psychological  domain, 

262,   263;    and  appreciation,  349-51.     See 

also  Activity 
Time:   in  the  course  of  experience,  30-32;   as 

content,  60;   in  historical  becoming,  114  ff.; 

in  physical  order,  249,  250,  253,  258 
Type:    of  processes,  259,  260;    in  sociological 

synthesis,  295,  298 

Unification:  of  past  experiences  by  the  scheme, 
208  ff.;  of  future  experiences  by  the  dogma, 
227  ff. 

Uniformity:  of  objects  and  real  systems  as 
result  of  uniform  determinations,  234  ff.,  283 

Unity:  and  multiplicity  of  historical  objects, 
96  ff.;  of  the  rational  order  of  reality, 
criticized,  150  ff.,  31S  ff-;  of  the  meta- 
physical essence  of  reality,  rejected,  257, 
268;   of  knowledge,  criticized,  314  ff.,  351 

Universal,  in  knowledge,  23s 

Universality  of  forms  of  experience,  34,  35 

Validity,  logical,  implied  in  all  activity,  44,  45 

Valuation.    See  Appreciation 

Values:  as  object-matter  of  philosophy,  ix  ff.; 
objective,  as  criteria  of  science,  4,  5;  their 
relativity,  15  ff.,  3478.;  economic,  71,  72; 
hedonistic,  72,  73,  100;  philosophy  of,  87  ff.; 
absolute,  90-91;  aesthetic,  100  ff.;  social, 
280,  290;  as  objects  of  positive  and  negative 
appreciation,  346  ff. 

Variations  of  historical  objects,  94  ff. 

View  of  the  world,  3,  12 

Voluntarism,  90 

Wideness  of  complexes,  as  manifestation  of 

their  realness,  82 
Windelband,  x 
Word:  as  symbol  illustrating  meaning,  69,  70; 

as  example  of  historical  object,  97,  98;   its 

historical  evolution,  121 


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